 Today is the 6th of August 1945, people used to remember it more clearly was when the United States dropped an atom bomb, the first use of the atom bomb against human beings. This was on the city of Hiroshima, a catastrophic event 76 years ago. We remember the US bombing on Hiroshima on give the people what they want, which is your show and why you're here with Zoe Prashant from People's Dispatch, that's peoplesdispatch.org and me Vijay from Globetrotter. We remember the bombing of Hiroshima on give the people what they want because of course the scourge of nuclear weapons continues. It's not something that took place on the 6th of August 1945, the US dropping an atom bomb on the city of Hiroshima in Japan. It's not just that we remember it for historical reasons, but of course nuclear weapons continue to be developed, nuclear weapons continue to proliferate. It's I think spectacular something to keep in mind that the administration of Joe Biden of the United States has decided to maintain Trump level nuclear weapons spending. This is very important for people to recognize last year Trump lifted up the US spending towards nuclear weapons, including so called battlefield nuclear weapons. And the United States under the administration of Joe Biden is not rolling back on battlefield nuclear weapons. Now what this does of course, and it's important to bear this in mind is the proliferation or the increase of battlefield, even the potential of battlefield nuclear weapons sends a message to other nuclear weapons powers. For instance, Russia or China and encourages them to also develop either battlefield nuclear weapons or missile defense systems. You know, there's two things that the UN Secretary General Antonio Gutierrez put on the table on his speech earlier today. He put two things on the table. Number one, the actual threat of war and the actual threat of the use once more of nuclear weapons. Again, 76 years ago, a bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. A few days later, a bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. It's not like this is a theoretical question. So Antonio Gutierrez saying the intensification or increase of nuclear weapons systems spending on nuclear weapons simply creates the sense that these weapons could be used again. And I think that's the first thing to keep in mind. The second thing, of course, is that this is an outrageous waste of money. We're going to talk in a little bit about vaccines. We're going to talk in a little bit about hunger. I want you to bear in mind billions of dollars spent on nuclear weapons. This amount of money, obscene amount of money could of course be used for other purposes. Bridging the digital divide, allowing children who have been out of school as a consequence of the pandemic to get some form of education at home. This could be used to bridge the hunger divide. Three billion people hungry will come back to that. As I said, Prashant will be reporting on the WHO's plea regarding vaccines. All of this could be settled if nuclear weapons funding was immediately abolished. And that's what the UN Secretary General Antonio Gutierrez hinted at in his statement. I want to put a third thing on the table, which is also often forgotten. On giving the people what they want and at people's dispatch, you've seen reporting about nuclear weapons testing. We've talked about the French testing in Polynesia. In Tahiti, for instance, I reported that President Emmanuel Macron arrived there and didn't have the decency to apologize directly to the people of Tahiti and French Polynesia. And secondly, the French have simply not used their own wealth to compensate the people of that region. Last week, we also talked about billionaires who have gone into space. I want to bring something to your attention, friends. Those of you who watch, listen to, give the people what they want, I want to bring something to your attention. It's not widely known that the United States in 1962 actually exploded a nuclear weapon in space. It's not well known that this occurred. It was visible from the Pacific and so on. It was in 1962 that the United States nuclear test took place in space. Let's bear this in mind. Let's not forget the people who died on the 6th of August 1945 in Hiroshima. Let's not forget the very brave people who took photographs and sent those photographs out to the world. Journalists like Wilfrid Burchett, who broke through the attempted censorship by the US government to write a very brave story about what he saw directly in Hiroshima. John Hershey later in the New Yorker and so on, bringing the silence. These really brave journalists who went to ground zero and covered the story. Yes, today is the 6th of August 1945. It's Hiroshima Day. Welcome to give the people what they want. Let's go directly into our stories because, I mean, I'd mentioned already Antonio Guterres talking about the expense of nuclear weapons. If you add it all together, trillions of dollars, the United States military budget itself, a trillion dollars. And yet the WHO had to make a special plea about vaccines. Prashant, what's been happening with vaccines and what has the WTO been saying? Right Vijay, the World Health Organization, the Director General actually made a very strict, it was actually a very surprising request which shows a lot about the situation the world is in right now. He asked for something, he asked for a moratorium on booster shots. Now, of course, it seems at some level very counterintuitive because, you know, you want, you're talking about vaccines are effective, how they're essential, so you want people to be vaccinated more. But at the heart of this request for a booster moratorium is a very simple fact that the vaccine inequality today is at staggering levels. And this is a topic we have addressed a number of times on this show. And this is a trend that has been building over the months. We all saw it coming. It does not, and the sudden emergency does not, almost this air of inevitability around which it happened. So what's the scene right now we have, you know, the richer countries, maybe 50 people for every 100 have been vaccinated in the poorer countries. It's about 1.5%. Now, that actually reveals the horrible extent to which and we're talking the number for the rich countries is in May. So by now it is definitely increased. I think in the US it's close to 70%. So we're talking about a horrifying level of inequality in terms of how vaccines have been distributed. The WHO had some months ago had given a very simple call. He said that, you know, somewhere down May, whether we can give 10% of every country's population the vaccine by September. Now, this is nothing massive. It's a very, very basic requirement. Yet we see countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, which are really struggling to even provide basic doses. Some weeks ago we did a story on Bosnia and Herzegovina in Europe very close to the rich European countries again struggling. Same situation perhaps in Latin America as well. In South Asia, for instance, India is showing progress but a long way to go. Many of the other countries not so. So we have this situation where there's a horrifying amount of inequality in vaccines and what stands out is the inability of the world community to come together, which really stems down to the question of the richer countries, the G20 countries, failing to actually live up to the responsibility they have. So this is nothing, we've seen this is the number of instances. Of course, nuclear weapons, very good example. But I think as a similar crisis of our times, a crisis which has bought so much death, a crisis which has caused so much displacement. That the world, the global community as a whole cannot ensure even 10% of every country's population being vaccinated nearly a year and a half into the pandemic. I think it really says a lot about where we are today. You see the issue that you raise about the vaccine and vaccine nationalism is so central. Equally, of course, we've seen at the same time, Prashant, the countries of the so-called international community, countries that have authority and power over global institutions. Not only are they not funding COVAX and so on, the vaccine program. At the same time, they seem to be suffocating a lot of countries. We've seen at the UN discussions about sanctions being placed upon countries, tightened on countries. We've talked about Cuba, Venezuela, Zimbabwe experiencing sanctions. Iran, Syria, the list is very, very long. 30 plus countries experiencing unilateral sanctions by the United States. And since the US dollar plays such a significant role in world affairs, this suffocates a lot of general activity for countries. We haven't talked much about Nicaragua, which we know is coming into a presidential election cycle. Zoe, what's happening with Nicaragua and the sanctions regime? Well, in November, Nicaragua will hold presidential elections. We've seen kind of an increase in destabilization efforts on behalf of the United States, but also their allies in the European Union and other international institutions. And so what happened is on August 2, the European Union announced new sanctions on several officials of the Nicaraguan government. The vice president, Murillo, who's the wife of Daniel Ortega, the president, the president of the National Assembly, an attorney general, and several other officials. And these sanctions are allegedly in response to what mainstream media, mainstream media like CNN and NPR to Human Rights Watch, which, I mean, as we know, is quite partial in Latin America, often taking the side of the US State Department against Cuba, against Venezuela. Nicaragua is no exception against what they're calling a political crackdown on the opposition. And so I think it's kind of confusing to unpack really what's happening right now in Nicaragua, but essentially several opposition activists are under investigation. A couple of them were arrested in June. And essentially these arrests stem from accusations that they've been receiving funding from US agencies, such as USAID, and working with agencies of the US to kind of destabilize the country and promote de-stabilizing actions. For those of you who weren't following in 2018, there was, you know, a series of violent protests that happened in Nicaragua. You know, of course, it's always hard to tell what comes first, kind of legitimate protest demands, or US-backed opposition, because in a lot of places, you know, some protests emerge out of, you know, places of feeling distress, feeling discontent with the government. And as we've seen in Cuba, as we've seen, you know, in Venezuela in 2017, these protests often get capitalized on by forces that are really looking to, you know, change the government that's in power, that has powerful allies in the United States, has powerful allies internationally. You know, of course, we see human rights watch has been, you know, a key player in a lot of what's been happening, you know. But essentially, in these protests in 2018, there was a series of violent actions against government supporters. I mean, I encourage people to check out Gloria Lariva and other US political activists were on a delegation a couple of weeks ago in Nicaragua speaking to survivors of this violent uprising that happened in Nicaragua in 2018. These attacks against people who support the Sandinista Revolution. I mean, there's a lot to say there. I won't really go into it. But what we're seeing now is the US, the European Union and other institutions kind of trying to squeeze down on Nicaragua to impose these economic sanctions, which as we've spoken about several times in this show, you know, they claim it's to, you know, attack the, to try to bring political pressure down to, you know, encourage human rights. But at the end of the day, we know that sanctions affect all people. Sanctions affect people's ability to get health care. They affect people's ability to get food, electricity. So while the US claims that the end, you know, the European Union now claims these sanctions are about human rights, restoration of political order, I think what we really need to kind of think clearly about why this is happening. We have the, the presidential elections happening in November. President Ortega is set to win because of, you know, what they've been able to provide for the Nicaraguan people, health care, access to food. It's one of the countries in Central America that has kind of the highest rates of stability in terms of access to basic needs. I mean, we can only look at Honduras and Salvador Guatemala, which are mired in corruption and violence and extreme poverty to really see the difference here. You see, the whole issue of sanctions is so important for so many countries around the world. We've reported on the fact that the United Nations, a new group has been created, group of friends in defense of the UN Charter led by the Venezuelans, but has about 18 to 20 odd members of it, including countries like China and so on. It's important to remember that these sanctions are impacting countries that are trying to dig out of quite severe problems. We are now on the year anniversary of the blast in Beirut at the Beirut port. Just past a year since that blast took place, 218 people killed. That blast was about 120th of the Hiroshima bomb. Friends, that's very significant. The Hiroshima bomb was catastrophic, destroyed the city. The explosion of the ammonium nitrate was 120th of the blast from Hiroshima. It's very hard to reconstruct the city of Beirut. Lebanon facing the knock-on effects of sanctions, the so-called Caesar sanctions against Syria, for instance, still in place. Half the population of Lebanon in poverty is important to bear this in mind. Just south of Lebanon, just south of Lebanon in Jerusalem and in northern parts of Palestine, something atrocious is happening. A war crime, a serious war crime taking place just south of Lebanon. Prashant, take us into this most recent war crime conducted by the government of Israel. Right, which we are of course talking about something at a locality, a community region which has become for in many ways the heart of resistance across the world in the year 2021. A few days ago, we saw an Israeli court come up with possibly the most insulting kind of compromise, so-called compromise offer, which the beleaguered residents of Sheikh Jarrah are facing. As we know, these residents have been staying in this locality for decades. Before occupied Israel, they came under Israeli occupation. We know that Israeli courts, for instance, did not have jurisdiction over the place in which these people are staying because it is an occupying power. And we also know the extent, legalities aside, we also know the extent of popular anger on this issue, because we do remember that it was Sheikh Jarrah, which was one of the starting points to a mass Palestinian resistance against which the Israelis cracked down even more harshly than in recent times in May and we saw hundreds of deaths, so many injuries. So Sheikh Jarrah in many ways was one of the starting points, one of the core issues around which a lot of this took place. And the most disturbing fact is that despite the extent of resistance that we saw inside Israel, inside the occupied Palestinian territories across the world, across West Asia, despite all that, we see that Israel and its authorities and the settler groups nonetheless continue to try to apply pressure in Sheikh Jarrah to get these residents out. So this is the larger context and on this issue, now these people who have been living there for decades have been offered a compromise solution, according to which they need to, if they pay rent to a settler organization which is claiming that land, they can stay there for, they can stay on rent for three generations. Now I think this is in a nutshell is basically illustrates what Israeli policy towards Palestinians has been, because your land has been taken over and you are being offered the chance to basically be a tenant, basically you have to pay to that to a completely random organization. So that is where we are right now. It's a very, very disturbing scenario. The only interesting thing is that despite all this, the legal battle continues. The residents have been very clear that they're not going to give up their demands and these are not the only families. This is the case of four families. There are 28 such families which are facing evictions. So we're going to be seeing a lot of resistance. We know that a young generation of Palestinians came out onto the streets on this issue, that it has transformed the way protest and resistance happened in Palestine across West Asia. So really looking to see how developments will take place in the coming weeks. Before you reported and it's a very significant story about the demolitions, the International Criminal Court has an open file looking clearly at issues like the apartheid wall, looking at the demolitions at the warfare and so on. Each of these treated as a war crime because of course these demolitions are a violation of the Geneva Convention and I hope that Prosecutor Ben Souda is paying close attention to this. Before you report that, I mentioned that half the population in Lebanon lives in poverty, is having a hard time making ends meet. New report, new government data out of Mexico shows that poverty rate now is 44% in Mexico. People have slipped into poverty as a result of the pandemic. Meanwhile, there was an election recently about corruption. Zoe, what's the latest from the referendum held in Mexico around corruption? Well, on August 1st, you know, millions of Mexicans had the opportunity to go to the polls and vote in a referendum, which was kind of a consultation about whether former presidents should be brought to trial and investigated for several crimes including human rights violations, corruption, electoral fraud, and others. And so the exact question was, do you agree on undertaking a process of clarification of the political decisions and past political actors? So essentially this, the referendum, which was promoted by Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the current president of Mexico, this was to create a mechanism of truth and justice to investigate former political actors. Unfortunately, the referendum did not meet quorum. Not enough people participated. They needed, you know, over 40% of the participating voting population to vote in the election, either yes or no, and they did not meet that quorum. I mean, there's several reasons for why this didn't happen, holding elections during COVID. There were also, you know, multiple kind of messaging going out to say that people shouldn't go out and vote because it's not safe because of COVID, etc. However, I think what's important about this referendum and what it really brings to the table is how do the people of Mexico bring forward the struggle for truth and justice in a country where there are, you know, anywhere between 80,000 and 90,000 disappeared people. I mean, these are just official, you know, numbers from human rights organizations. You know, many people say this number could even be a low ball number. And I think it's really, it's really hard to imagine 80,000, 90,000 people who their families have no idea, you know, where they are, what happened to them. And so, you know, this referendum is part of a process that human rights organizations have been pushing for, which is to be able to find out what happened to their family members, find out about these crimes, who is responsible. I think many of us will remember in 2014, the 43 students from the rural teachers college in Ayote Napa, from Iguala Guerrero, Mexico, who were, you know, kidnapped and disappeared. And in this, this is one of the emblematic crimes because we really see and saw how, you know, the president of Mexico at the time, Enrique Peña Nieto, you know, was influenced the investigation. Manipulated the investigation, tried to close the case, you know, said that, no, this was a time of drug cartels, there's nothing here, you know, these are the remains, case closed. And the families of the students, you know, have been constantly, you know, mobilizing on all of the anniversaries, going to every single, you know, international institution, every national institution in Mexico to try to demand justice. Because, you know, there's a lot of, there have been multiple independent commissions that have been in Mexico, but they don't have the official authority, you know, of the Mexican government to be able to, you know, get access to what was happening between the national government and the army. There's, you know, significant evidence to point to the fact that the army was directly involved in the disappearance of these students. And, you know, Ayotinapa is one crime, and there have been, sadly in Mexico, thousands of other crimes which involve the forced disappearance of activists, you know, of community members, of people for, you know, whatever reason, whether it be by the government, drug cartels, and there has been direct, you know, participation and influence by the government. And so, you know, this referendum was not able to pass. But what's happened since then is that the people who have been promoting the referendum have called for the installation of the People's Tribunal in Mexico. They're going to create a chapter of the People's Tribunal. And essentially, it's just in an effort to continue this search and this struggle for justice in a country where it's so deeply needed. And we, of course, would be remiss to not, you know, mention that, of course, the U.S. has not been helping hands in this. When we're talking about sanctioning countries for human rights violations, their next door neighbor, one of the biggest trade partners, you know, has been consistently implicated in the mass violation of human rights. I think we're seeing a change right now with Andrés Manuel López Obrador. He's been open. He's been pushing this process of truth and justice, and hopefully it will continue to advance. You say, Zoe, and we'll keep an eye on this because, I mean, the question of these truth and reconciliation commissions, the question of impunity, I think is something important for journalists to pay attention to. I fear it's something we don't cover as much as we should. Cover as much as we should. There's something about give the people what they want and people's dispatch, you know, those who watch us regularly and sometimes send us good wishes, sometimes bring their families along to watch with them. Well, you notice that we pay very close attention to the reports from the United Nations and the reason we do so is these are very credible documents of human suffering, very credible documents of human suffering. I want to call attention to two particular documents released in the recent period, which I think people should pay attention to. The first of them is the annual food and agriculture organizations document on state of food insecurity. Now, very startling finding in the food and agriculture organization document, they say that last year was the single largest slip of people into hunger. Hunger is precisely defined. People don't know where their next meal is coming from. It's a very, very difficult thing to acknowledge that we have 320 million people joining the ranks of the already hungry in one year. It's the largest single calendar year, largest single slip of people into hunger. Total count of hunger as far as the food and agriculture organization is concerned, 2.37 billion people. Friends, that's one in three people on the planet. This show is with Zoe, Prashant and myself. We are three people. One of us would be hungry statistically in the world, one in three people, 2.3 billion people. Now there are many authors for hunger. If you look at the UN environment program, they released a very important study recently. They do this study also annually. This is their study on food waste. Now, I don't want to make any mistakes here. The numbers are precise. The United Nations environment program says 931 million tons of food, 931 million tons of food going to waste bins every single year. 931 million tons. This includes food thrown in households, food thrown at restaurants and food that is thrown away rather than given to people to eat. Food that has not been sold in the market and so on, just tossed into bins, 931 million tons. Add this up. Put this 931 million tons in 40 ton trucks. You would need 23 million 40 ton trucks, 23 million 40 ton trucks at bumper to bumper. Line them up. They would circle the earth seven times. They would circle the earth seven times. So we have one in three people on the planet living with terrible, terrible hunger at the same time. We have enough food that these people could eat, but that food is thrown away. A lot of it into landfills, some of it into the ocean, seven times around the earth of 40 ton trucks carrying food that nobody can eat. Food, there are hungry people. What prevents hungry people from getting the food is that they don't have money. I want you to think about that. This is give the people what they want comes to you from People's Dispatch. If you go to the People's Dispatch website, you're going to see stories such as and I'm going to share with you four quick stories that I think you should go and read. You won't get stories like this elsewhere. One of them is on a teacher strike in Ecuador. Another is on Nigerian doctors on strike in the middle of an industrial action because the working conditions for doctors deteriorated in Nigeria. You have a story on protest movements in the United States, which led to an extension on the eviction auditorium very important. Teachers of Ecuador, the protesters in the United States, the doctors in Nigeria, they demonstrate for us that the more you struggle, the more you win. If you don't struggle, you still have 2.3 billion people go hungry. Finally, there's a very nice story on the socialist movement of Ghana and their recently concluded Congress by Baban Kulkarni. Very much recommend that you go immediately to peoplesdispatch.org. Have a look at the stories. You've been listening to give the people what they want. You've got to watch next week because we have a surprise for you. Next week, we have a surprise for you. You have to watch. Zoe Prashant, it's a pleasure to be with you every Friday. Have a great week, people.