 Israeli air and artillery strikes have continued through Wednesday and Thursday, turning Gaza according to at least one reporter who is coming to us from the ground, as he called it, from the world's biggest open air prison into a mass grave. The situation is indescribable and you must be watching live feeds as well as reports coming in from Gaza as well as from Israel and keeping track of what's happening and the scale of the humanitarian catastrophe that is being faced by the over 2 million residents of Gaza. With strikes now targeting, Israeli strikes that is now targeting the border crossing with Egypt at Rafa, as well as rendering inoperable the airports in Damascus and Aleppo in Syria, are we heading from total siege to total war? In Hollywood, the alliance of motion picture and television producers has halted talks with Saig Avtra, that's the union that represents actors and performers as well as others including web content creators, news broadcasters and a host of other media professions. Saying that the gap between demands and what they're willing to give is too big. Why is the union accusing producers of using bullying tactics? And finally the 30th edition of the ICC Men's Cricket World Cup is underway in India. Those who might not follow the game would be surprised to note that the biggest game of the tournament is not necessarily the final but is the game between India and Pakistan that will be played on the 14th of October. We talked about it in cricket journalist Sharda Avgra about where one day cricket stands today. Is it a celebration of a sport that has been well and truly decolonized or a massive pre-election rally for India's ruling party? Salams, you're watching Daily Debrief brought to you by People's Dispatch. If you haven't already, subscribe to our YouTube channel now. Our first story is no surprise. Of course we're talking about the latest from Gaza and from Israel. The US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is in Israel and held a joint press conference with Benjamin Netanyahu. The key point, at least from my perspective as someone listening in, was the claim that the US and Israeli militaries are following and always follow international law as well as the rules of war and do not target civilians. But from the pictures that we're seeing and from testimonies coming in, from civilians, from health workers, humanitarian aid workers, officials, doctors, journalists from Gaza, the evidence points in the absolute opposite direction. At Ershifa Hospital, which is the largest medical complex in Gaza, the morgue is so full that first a tent had to be erected outside to house some of the bodies and now that even that has been filled to beyond capacity, bodies are just being kept outside. That is the actual state of the situation right now. The entire population pretty much seems is without fuel, food, medicine, water. And at the time that we went into recording, Netanyahu was preparing to address the Knesset, which is the Israeli parliament and make a formal declaration of war as required by Israeli law. This will of course mean that the war cabinet will start functioning and will not require parliamentary approval for most actions, including military actions, at least those that pertain to Gaza unless they want to open up different fronts of the war, which in the context of the raids against Syrian airports in Damascus and Aleppo is not entirely out of the question. Meanwhile, in southern Israel, incursions by Hamas fighters have continued. They are sporadic, but they are still continuing and the Israeli military is still dealing with those. Civilians have been asked to evacuate those areas, but Netanyahu's response has not been to pull back. Instead, it said that Israel's response to Hamas will change the Middle East. Anish is with us on daily TV today as he has been every day covering this major story and the tragic and horrific, I don't know, no words to describe what is going on Anish at the moment. But from your understanding and from your reading of the news as well as reports that you're getting, what are the most important points since we last spoke to people's dispatch leaders? Well, obviously the blink and visit is the big news right now. Not because it's the US Secretary of State there, but because of the manner in which the US is so blatantly... Sorry, sorry, sorry, same issue again, I can't hear Anish. Can we start from the answer? Yeah, we can. What should I do? Should I leave and come back? It's so weird man, I could hear you fine before the recording started and now it's just gone. I'll try to leave and rejoin. Can you hear me now? Yeah. Yeah, okay. So I'll start with the answer, okay, in five seconds. Yes, it's done. So currently, obviously the blink and visit is something that is a major development, not because it's, you know, a US Secretary of State visiting, but primarily because of how blatantly the US is expressing its solidarity. And I say blatantly, primarily because it is happening essentially at a war zone and the United States is taking a very partisan side in this manner, in the manner in which that it has never done before. And you can actually see how the kind of language that they talked, that was evident with blink and speech, where he says that US is going nowhere and it is there and backing up Israel. And very clearly at a time when there is a massive siege and a blockade that is cutting off everything that is essential for human life in this densely populated area. And it is, you know, it would be unthinkable to imagine that the US leadership is not aware of this atrocity happening, that they have, it has been communicated to them by multiple organizations, by the United Nations, you know, groups within the US, you know, UN as well, and the United States as well. So this is not something that they're not aware of. They're very well aware of the catastrophe that is going to unfold, considering that it is nearly now 24, more than 24 hours, that there has been no electricity supply in the region. There is no, you know, they will be running out of drinking water very soon. Hospitals are not able to function because of the lack of electricity. And, you know, food supplies, medicines, nothing is going through. And Israeli administration, Israeli military leadership is blatantly saying that they are going to withhold all of these essential provisions, utilities, as long as their soldiers continue to be prisoners in Gaza. And that is a very, you know, it is not merely just retribution we are looking at, it is a collective punishment of the sword that we have not probably seen in recent decades even of any kind of war to imagine. Like, even some of the recent wars we have reported or actually talked about, we have seen, you know, combating sites, parties actually, you know, giving way for humanitarian aid at some level, and, you know, even making way for a humanitarian corridor when there needs to be, you know, when there happens to be a massive displacement of people. We are already looking at close to 400,000 people about to be displaced. And that is, you know, basically a fifth of the population already. And despite that, there is this very, you know, emphatic US support compared to their very way and very, you know, peace meal statement to the Israeli authorities that they should make sure that no civilian lives are lost in the battle and that they should be levelheaded. It's a very peace meal statement. It makes no sense. They are not telling, they're not putting any conditions, but their support is quite emphatic and unconditional. And that itself shows why Israel is emboldened if at all it actually goes through a ground invasion of Gaza, which would be a disaster in its own self, but it is going to, it is something that we are veering towards at this current moment. Anish, at this point, you were hoped or you would have hoped for some kind of statesmanship, leadership to emerge and the conversations at that level to be somewhat different from what we are seeing on, let's say, social media, for example. Of course, you cannot blame civilians on either side for the kind of strands that they might be taking. But what we are the kind of sort of division or polarization that we are seeing is being repeated, particularly by Israel's allies in the West, in Europe, where they are still fixated on getting the Palestinian Authority to first condemn what Hamas did in these attacks. How do we expect any forward movement, any safeguarding of, like they said in the joint statement, Netanyahu and Blinken, that civilians are not being targeted if you're going to turn the water off, you're going to turn the lights off, you're going to turn the fuel off, how is that different? How can you say that you are not targeting civilians? This is a sign from, of course, the artillery and the constant airstrikes. Exactly. It is definitely something like even when it was posed to them, these questions, these exact questions, there was evasive answers. And in most cases, Blinken kind of did not really answer, bother to answer many of these questions. In some, he actually just talked about how Hamas's terrorist organization or that it is using people as human shields. Like an entire armed wing cannot use a population of 2 million people as a human shield when it's that 2 million people that is being bombarded very arbitrarily, indiscriminately, who are being, you know, deprived of all sorts of resources. So the attack is on dozen people and not just Hamas as Israel or the US wants to think it is or wants its people to think it is. On the other hand, like when you talk about statement, you actually need to talk about the kind of behavior that the US leadership has actually presented. The President himself was caught sharing a fake news about atrocities supposedly conducted by Hamas. And that clearly shows the incapability of statesmanship by the US government or the people in the US government right now, because it's mostly reactive. Their entire presence there, it's quite reactive. They are either completely overlooking the consequences of the grounded invasion or the catastrophe that it will cause, or they're just not planning ahead of time. They're not looking ahead of what might happen and how it can actually create a wider altercation in the region if something of that sort happens. Let's not even talk about the humanitarian catastrophe that is unfolding at the moment. So this is not something that the US government is very forward thinking at this point when it comes to its policy on Israel and Palestine, of course. So definitely there is this one thing about the US being completely on its side. But then you are also seeing some difference in the Western leadership in other places. There are already EU governments who are very, there are reports talking about how many of them are concerned about the humanitarian catastrophe that is going to unfold because of complete blockade of the region and no access to anything, basically, or to the outside world. And that is something that many of, that is also preventing many of them from, for going from, going for unconditional support of the Israeli leadership at the moment. So definitely there is that aspect that needs to be considered. But obviously, US is going to be quite suicidal at this point, considering that foreign policy has been quite confused for a while now. On the other hand, we are also looking at a situation where Israel is also unraveling in many ways. You're already seeing Netanyahu reaching his lowest in opinion polls and approval ratings primarily because he's been blamed for the Hamas attack, for the intelligence failures, the military failure of the entire situation. So there is an unraveling happening within Israel as well that is also not given as much attention as it should be at this point in time. Right. And maybe we can get a bit more into that, Anish, when we have you back on daily debrief tomorrow, of course. But meanwhile, Blinken is in the region, there are also reports that he will meet Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority in Jordan. Any sort of inputs on that front? It is very hard to say what the agenda will be because of the kind of, one thing we need to understand is that the Palestinian Authority has refused to the Western line when it comes to talking about the attack by Hamas. It's they are not like we have seen multiple statements by their representatives, their leadership, even there's the representative speech at the United Nations of how it is more important to talk about Israeli violence and continued Israeli colonization on the Palestinian people than it is to talk about whether or not Hamas was right in doing its attack. And that clearly shows that there is definitely obvious pressures from the ground, like most Palestinians do not necessarily see the attack as something that is beyond justification. Obviously, they might disagree with the tactics, but they do not look at it as something that is as contemptible as say the Israeli, the continued Israeli violence and the escalated Israeli violence that Palestinians have been going for about for the past two or three years actually. And obviously the 17 years of blockade and all sorts of colonization, the attacks on Al-Aqsa, which again happened yesterday, the day before yesterday as well, by an armed battalion that were supporting tourists and a group of Jewish settlers. So all of this is happening at the same time and there are also already killings happening within West Bank. So this is there is definitely something that the Palestinian Authority will obviously not be seen as condemning Hamas or its attack. So I'm very curious to see what Lincoln is going to achieve or if he actually seeks anything from the Palestinian Authority at this point in time, because they are not going to tour that line. They are not going to become the pacifist at this moment. They might seek for a negotiated solution for the current crisis, but they are not going to go beyond their way to condemn Hamas at this point in time. And that is one thing for sure. Anish, we will of course ask you to keep tracking those developments as well as whatever does happen in the Knesset and how that official declaration of war will result in further escalation of what happens next. But we'll ask you to hang around because we're talking about another story that you've tracked for people's dispatch. In Hollywood or in the US on Wednesday night, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television producers, which is the sort of umbrella body that represents, among others, the big studios in the US, they called off negotiations against with, sorry, the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of TV and Radio Artists, which represents over 150, 160,000 performers and media professionals across the board, saying that the gap between what the studios are willing to accept or offer and what the latest proposal from the Union was, the gap is too wide to bridge. The Union, of course, has responded saying that the studios are using bullying tactics, including completely exaggerating the cost of this proposal. In one case, a report I was reading said that it was exaggerated to the media by as much as six cents. But meanwhile, there is a bit of good news on the strike front. The Writers Guild of America has ended its nearly 150 day strike after ratifying a tentative agreement with the same association of producers. Anish, we'll start with the good news, if we can, which is that potentially the Writers strike or the Writers strike is off and writers who work in these various industries from television to radio to news, we'll go back to work. How did that happen and what are the details of the agreement? Well, obviously, the strike worked and Writers got a deal that they actually wanted. We are looking at an ratification rate of about 99%, close to 99%. And that clearly shows there was this overwhelming support from the Writers Association, the Writers Guild. And that also kind of shows that they got exactly what they wanted from the AMPTP. And this is something that was considered to be unworkable just a couple of months ago. So in the current scenario, what we are looking at is a couple of demands. Key ones include a 5% immediate increase in wages, minimum wage and a 4 and a 3.5% increase in 2024 and 2025. And so this agreement will actually see about clearly more than 12% wage hike and obviously a 12% hike in minimum wages for contributors and writers who do not necessarily work for credit in most cases. And there will also be a high contribution from employers contribution for pensions and healthcare in the contract, which is something that they have been fighting for for years actually. This was even before the current contract came into place. So this was a very long standing demand that they actually secured. But most importantly, it is the protections against AI, the use of AI in the writing process, the creative process that that is actually quite significant. Because one of the things like for instance, some of the conditionalities that they have put up is that there won't be any AI generated material or literature that will be used or even rewritten materials that will be used without the consent and the advice of the writers as part of the staff, as part of the creative process. So they will have to vet the entire AI generated literature before they are actually used for the protection itself. And there's also a very clear distinction between the fact that all writers, including writers, multiple writers who work on the same project will be treated as different employees. So they will also have significantly different pension and healthcare, sorry, not different as in like segregated pension and healthcare, which is not what it used to be. It used to be a shared pension and healthcare plans for writers who work on the same project. So both of these clearly show a big progress that writers have been calling for for a long while. Now, at the same time, writers have talked about the fact that they are not going to stop the picket. They have obviously ratified the deal, but they will continue to pick it in solidarity with the SAG AFRA. So this is something that is going to be a significant movement in Hollywood because something of the sort was never seen before. We're already looking at a double strike that happened after nearly 60 years in Hollywood, and that definitely has had its impact. And so when you look at the actors and performers strike, it is a very significant, it is a slightly different set of demands that are significant, that are important for them, even though the MPTP says that it is going to give them the same set of contract, but that is definitely not what we are looking at, right? So any way quickly, because we are very short on time, but any further details on what these gaps are that the studios are saying are unbridgeable? Well, it is very difficult to take the producers on face value or the studios in face value because what we have seen is that they have clearly overestimated the cost that they will have to incur in the new contract that the actors and performers have presented to them. In fact, what the SAG AFRA representatives have talked about is the fact that the current deal, the new deal that the MPTP has presented is substantially lesser, even qualitatively and quantitatively from what they actually offered before the strike even began. So they have actually brought down the negotiate, they are actually trying to use a certain kind of negotiation tactic, which is essentially bringing down the offer and forcing the workers to actually admit to something lower than what they are actually set out for. So definitely this is a certain kind of pressure tactic and there is a good deal of truth to the claim that it is a certain kind of bullying tactic by the producers. So we will have to wait and see. There are more details need to be awaited because obviously negotiations are underway. So what we are looking at is a very hostile producers' guilt, trying to pressure actors and performers, many of whom actually are making quite substance wages through their career and that is about 160,000 workers in the industry who require these new and better deal for them to actually make a decent living at the very least. All right. Any thanks very much for all of those updates and I'm sure I will see you again very soon. Right on our final bit for today, you may or may not be aware that the 13th edition of the ICC men's cricket World Cup, one day international World Cup that is, is underway in India as we speak. There's a game going on today as well but the base game of the tournament irrespective of what might happen unless of course the same two teams reach the final. It's a game between India and Pakistan that will be played at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad in the state of Gujarat which of course, of which of course Narendra Modi was chief minister for many years before he became prime minister of India. Sharda is joining us. She has of course covered many, many World Cups and has quite extensive views on the tournament. Sharda thanks very much for joining us on daily debrief as always. I know you're a bit rushed for time so we'll keep it as quick as possible. So good, bad and ugly essentially is what we're looking at. Let's start with the good. Hi Siddhant, great to be on the daily debrief as always. I think the good is the quality of the cricket that we see played between these 10 countries that are the top nations in World Cricket. There are many arguments to be made for the fact that look it's a World Cup, rugby has got 20 teams, 30 teams, whatever. Football has got 32 teams, rugby has got 20 teams. Why can't cricket have more than 10? But the quality of the cricket that we see will be quite extraordinary. There's always that and the whole atmosphere that will build around it in India though some of the stadiums have not been full. That will be without doubt. Even sort of hardcore reporters like me will find myself melting at some point in time at some particular piece of the action. That will be fantastic. So of course we would expect from World Cup, the apex tournament of the sport for that to happen. Just on the good if we can continue a little bit because cricket is a sport that has a very strong colonial legacy. It was of course brought to countries like India, South Africa, many other parts of the world, the Caribbean of course, by the British. Do you look at it as a sport that has been successfully decolonised and that countries like India today are running the show pretty much, running the economy of cricket for sure? That's a very interesting take that you've taken on it. That's one take saying that the sport has been decolonised. I certainly think the South Asian subcontinent has changed the grammar and the tenor and the fabric of the sport and how it's played as opposed to how it's played in England and Australia. It's a very mass sport. It's a very public sport. It's played out in the open all year round on streets and gullies which is very regimented and organised in parts of the western world. But the other thing that says is that look, cricket's always been an imperial sport. It's always been a colonial sport and the colonial masters of today. It was Britain and Australia previously. The colonial masters of today is India. The colonial master of today is India and the Indian subcontinent and our television viewing audience. That's definitely one way of looking at it. I would actually agree with the latter because of the way in which India and the BCCI, that's the National Cricket Board of India, how it operates through the game. It's not done in a very generous and expansive and inclusive manner. It's pretty much a lot of bullying. Yeah, an example is this big game that we're talking about, the India-Parisan game which was meant to happen on the 15th but because of I suppose personal reasons. The BCCI was able to rearrange it. Unheard of perhaps at an event like a World Cup in any sport that the post-nation can determine fixtures and things like that. Sharda, you have been covering the World Cup. You're doing video bits on the wire. You've had a long-form story, a cover story out in the caravan where you're talking about the involvement of the ruling party in India and the Board of Control for Cricket in India. An interesting aspect because we often hear talk from world bodies in sport about keeping governance or governments outside of how sport is run. Now in the context of cricket, that's a conversation that never comes up in the Indian context. We talk about Pakistan, we can talk about Zimbabwe, we talk about South Africa to an extent when it comes to the quota system that they have in place but in an Indian context that somehow remains taboo to talk about. You're absolutely right because of the fact that India controls the largest market that the sport has which then translates into television right, which then translates into revenues and therefore controls that the Indian board has on the other countries and the international body of cricket which is the international cricket council has been over the last few years. It used to be a much stronger body. It used to have a certain amount of pushback, a certain caliber of leadership that spoke for the world game. There's nobody to do that at this point in time and it's reflected in how this World Cup has been conducted. It doesn't even look like international governing bodies. Cricket doesn't look like a properly governed sport. It just looks like a little bit of shambles of colonial legacy that's playing out itself in different forms and saying, no, no, we are standing up against a form of colonial power. You're absolutely not your behaving exactly like that. Finally, Sharda, we will hopefully have a longer conversation with you. I don't know, tomorrow will be a busy day but maybe day after we can catch up and get a broader overview of what's happening particularly with regard to the politics of the sport because it is vital. But concurrently the international Olympic committee's session is happening in Mumbai as well. As a cricket journalist primarily, how are you looking at some of those conversations that might happen? Is there an interest in joining the Olympic movement? There has been this big push towards joining the Olympic movement from cricket. The BCCI has resisted it because that means all the Olympic IOC laws will sort of tend to apply doping, whereabouts clause, all the rest of it that they've tried to always hold up against. So there is definitely, but for the rest of the world, it will be a big fillip that you can get into the Olympic movement. And the Olympic movement would be happy to have cricket because of the kind of money that it generates. And we have to point out here, Siddhant, that in terms of nation versus nation, global competition, after the FIFA World Cup and the Olympic games, the cricket World Cup is the most valuable media property, no matter that only 10 countries at the top may play it. So I think the Olympics is very much a part of a larger cricket conversation and calendar because then maybe they'll get some of these rules to apply that you can't change in the middle of a World Cup, you can't be changing schedules after the playing on the remits have been signed. You know, all these kind of strange things that are happening. I mean, visas being denied to Pakistanis or being delayed for the Pakistani cricket team itself is a shocking thing that would never have happened had it been a properly run international tournament and certainly not at the Olympic level. Despite the fact that there have been games in the United States and Russia and all the rest of it, visa procedures have been fairly simple and streamlined. It's either you'll get the games, you can sort this out and you can't sort this out, there will be hell to pay. But there's been no hell to pay on the Indian cricket board at this point. All right. We will of course be also tracking those developments Sharda at the IOC session and to see if any actual meaningful discussion or vote even is held on that subject and then we'll catch up with you to sort of analyze that for us. But very interesting that you point out here that where there are perhaps dozens of sport around the world that are eagerly vying for being included or to be included in the Olympic program, here is a sport where those that run its global economy are the ones that are perhaps pushing back against being part of that movement. Thanks very much for taking the time to talk to us at People's Dispatch Sharda. Have a good evening and we will catch you very soon. And with that we also bring close this episode of daily debrief. As always, we invite you to head to our website, people'sdispatch.org for details on these stories and all of the rest of the work we do. We'll be back same time, same place tomorrow, hopefully. Until then stay safe. Thank you for watching.