 There have been plenty of developments since we last came to you with daily debrief on people's dispatch in Israel, in Gaza, of course, and around the world, the scale of the humanitarian crisis that the Gaza people are facing and the tragic reality of life in Gaza today unfolds in full view of the world. But what exactly is being done by world leadership to combat the increasing scale of this catastrophe? What are the most important developments from a humanitarian, a political and a diplomatic perspective? And what should we be talking about today? That's our lead story as it has been on daily debrief since the current conflict between Hamas and Israel continued and Israel began. It's all out siege and offensive of Gaza, as well as the occupied territories and the West Bank. We also have today results of the referendum in Australia where a majority of citizens or voters there have rejected the voice referendum which sought a constitutional amendment to create a body of indigenous people to advise parliament as well as the Australian government on issues that affect indigenous communities. A majority of voters in all six Australian states voted no. What does this mean for the rights of First Nation communities in Australia? And in Geneva, the World Congress of Public Services International is being held. We reported, of course, earlier last week, on a protest by health workers ahead of the official start of the Congress. Today, we asked what's not saying, who is in Geneva and attending that Congress. What public services workers around the world are talking about? What are the issues they are facing? And what are they demanding from political leadership? Salam, you're watching daily debrief brought to you by People's Dispatch. Take a second before we begin to subscribe to our YouTube channel. As I was saying at the top of the show, plenty has been happening in Gaza and in the region in West Asia as well as around the world in response and reaction to Israel's all-out siege of the Gaza Strip. Its continued suppression in the occupied territories, West Bank, particularly mass arrests are being reported there. There has also been some talks of a potential visit by US President Joe Biden to the region after what can be or what many commentators are regarding as the failed diplomatic visit of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Israel as well as to Jordan where he met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and other leaders. He also spoke with Egypt's Al-Sisi, Saudi Arabia and others. Anish has been covering these developments from all perspectives, from the humanitarian perspective, from the diplomatic perspective and of course from the political perspective as well. Anish, not a very insightful question maybe but let's start since we've had a bit of a break with the latest updates and on the harrowing, the tragic situation that Gazans are facing today. Yes, so the escalation has gone even further now. What we're looking at is the siege reaching a point where you can have humanitarian crisis that will be much bigger than perhaps the bombings itself. The WHO has said that almost all hospitals are very fast running out of fuel and if there is no end to the fuel embargo in the next 24 hours, pretty much no hospital in Gaza will have any access to fuel with which we mean that there will be no power for them to run some of the most essential emergency services. At the same time, hospitals are talking about running out of all sorts of supplies, not just medicines and equipment but also water, drinking water is something that they're having reports of many doctors trying to find and search for them. There is also the fact that the border closure continues, there is a large exodus of people that is happening now, fearing a ground invasion in northern parts of Gaza which is the most heavily populated areas of the Gaza Strip which includes Gaza City as well. So a large number of people are moving south, many have reached the Rafa border with Egypt which continues to be closed except for some delivery of essential supplies but very rare, most of which is not allowed by the Egyptian government either. So the fact that the Rafa border continues to be closed despite the large exodus of displaced people clearly shows that this crisis is going to be much, much bigger than what anybody would have calculated at the moment. At the same time, what we're seeing is Israel continuing to make all sorts of very inflammatory statements about wanting to clear down the whole of Gaza. On Sunday we actually saw one of the most intense bombings of Gaza since the whole incident began on October 7th which has actually leveled entire neighbourhoods and at the same time Israel has started a violent crackdown on any kind of protest or mobilisation in the West Bank. So far according to the Palestinian Authority, 58 people have been killed and more than a thousand people or 2,000 people actually have been injured by the kind of violent crackdowns that have been witnessed right now in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. Refugee camps are being raided very regularly, more regularly than it used to be just a couple of weeks ago and this is despite the fact that we are talking about a time when attacks on occupied territories and attacks on the occupied peoples and villages and residential areas have intensified over the last few years. So what we're looking at is an overall escalation of crisis, very wanton escalation of crisis by Israel and all that talk about wanting the hostages that Hamas fighters allegedly had taken into Gaza be released is also being refuted with the kind of reports that we're seeing right now with at least a dozen reportedly killed by Israeli bombings themselves. So it clearly shows that Israel doesn't really care about its own people who are taken hostages by Hamas and the fact that it is not going to show any kind of signs for allowing a ceasefire for any humanitarian aid to go in, which was made clear by state and peace and people, shows that Israel just wants to continue to escalate the situation to a point where it is, there is no written possible return to the status quo ante. Anish, a lot has been happening on the diplomatic front as well since we last spoke with you. We had of course mentioned some aspects of the initial stages of Anthony Blinken's visit there. The US is once again trying to play the policeman or the monitor in the region despite what is apparent to I think many of the rest of us is a failure of its diplomatic efforts in the region. The response from West Asian countries, from Gulf region countries has been different from what it has been in the recent past. Clear inclination there that they are not willing to blindly to the US line. Put all of that into perspective for us a little bit over the course of his visit. Who all did Blinken meet and what was the sort of content of some of those conversations and any sort of results from it? Well, what we can see is that the Blinken tour actually of many of the West Asian countries did not really yield the kind of results that the US intended it would have. Many of these countries are already very strong allies, even military allies of the United States and many of them have supported US and US supported US-centric policies in the region as well. So what they banked on was there will be a sort of muted criticism at the very least of the Israeli attack on Gaza. But that is not happening right now. In the meanwhile, the kind of feedback and the kind of responses that Blinken got probably affected even the president stand very shortly, short while ago he actually made a statement that it would be a disaster or a catastrophe to actually and a big mistake. That's what the quote says. It would be a big mistake to for Israel to send in ground troops into Gaza. So that clearly shows a certain mellowing down of US stand primarily coming from pressures from West Asian allies, many of whom control whole resources and also very geostrategic networks of trade and transport that the US definitely banks on and for them to be isolated or any kind of alienated at the moment will not be in their best interest. But at the same time, US has a very official policy of supporting Israel, whatever comes over the weekend, we saw US actually saying that it will be sending a second aircraft carrier to the Eastern Mediterranean region. And that is pretty much in response to statements being made by his bullet and also the government of Iran. And that clearly shows that there is a chance of massive escalation in the region wide escalation of the conflict that the US is expecting if a ground invasion happens. And that is pretty much a red line right now that Israel is wanting to cross. But the West is not very keen on doing that at the moment. So what we're looking at is US being caught between a very difficult place, actually two very difficult places, and it is not very clear how to move forward with it. It is a very confused policy at the moment, because it has to juggle between both of them. And also the fact that there is a massive support among the political elite at the very least for the Zionist project. So it is pretty much caught up in its own set of web of creating very problematic alliances in the region that is now catching up to it in this current situation. And each one also saw reports and the way in which ordinary Israeli citizens are responding to the present government. We've seen widespread sort of antipathy, of course, over the course of the past several weeks and months to the kind of policies and sort of changes that the Netanyahu-led government was trying to bring into force in Israel. We've seen ministers who were trying to visit the injured at hospitals being sort of told in unequivocal terms that the government has completely mismanaged and exacerbated this crisis. What is the current political scenario in Israel? And of course there is the overwhelming sense that the people of Israel are united, but it's not 100% like that. There have been voices and loud and prominent voices advocating for peace. That's a very difficult situation definitely. A large part of the kind of narrative that goes around in Israel right now is the fact that is how they're looking at Netanyahu's failure in containing what they see as threat from Hamas. And a lot of details and reports about the situation about the Hamas incursion into Israeli territories actually have caused and exacerbated that kind of criticism. But at the same time, what you're looking at is the same bloc, the same nationalist kind of narrative also is calling for the war cabinet to actually go for an all-out war on Gaza. So it is a very polarized situation, very kind of a polarized situation where the sort of rabid, very ultra nationalist, very ultra Zionist narratives are the most loud ones in the current scenario and who dominate pretty much every other voices and talk over every other voices, even those of peace. So it is not a very pretty scene for within Israel to begin with. So we do not know how far the Israeli government is ready to go in actually satiating these voices. But right now what we have seen so far with the mobilization of tools, the mobilization of press service, it is not going to be a very pretty picture in the coming days. All right, Anish, thanks very much for those updates and we will continue with you to cover developments in Gaza and in Israel over the next few days. But what we move on now to our second story of the day, which is a vital story coming in from Australia, one that we've covered on DDT before in the build-up to this referendum that was held on October 14th across the country because it pertained to a constitutional amendment that allowed for the creation of an elected advisory body representing the indigenous communities of Australia, to our states, islanders to advise parliament on issues that pertain to them that impact them, whether it's on a policy level or a legal or law-making legislative level, or even perhaps even a discourse level, an inclusive sort of idea to give indigenous communities, First Nations communities the kind of voice in the parliamentary electoral system that they deserve and that they have been struggling for. This process, Anish, started a while ago with the guru statement of the heart and it has come to a sort of at least a midpoint in the sense that a majority of those with the right to vote in Australia and those who came out to vote across all six states have said no. So tell us first how this campaign sort of unfolded and how did the no voters win in the end? Well, one of the things that we need to understand is that the no vote started becoming and the support for the no vote started becoming quite dominant only in the past few months. If you look at the opinion polls even before the referendum was announced since August last year, the yes vote and support for a voice, indigenous voice, was overwhelming across Australia. In fact, most states actually had a majority of those who were surveyed supporting it and obviously that came down drastically since about Mejoo when a certain kind of narrative started taking hold. The right wing actually started using a certain set of talking points. Some started claiming that the voice would actually institute a sort of apartheid within Australia, a very species argument, but definitely something that took hold. A lot of fake news was a disinformation was being generated at the time. We also saw the entire Murdoch media up in action at the time being completely opposed and using all sorts of means to undermine the yes vote and the support for the indigenous voice. We must remember that the Murdoch media actually do have a sort of virtual monopoly on press in Australia. There has always been this debate that Australian media is kind of lacking in media diversity, primarily with ownership diversity and the fact that Murdoch media pretty much holds nearly two-thirds of the press in the country clearly shows that they are dominant in a manner which overwhelms every other. If they take a stand so strongly in opposition, they are definitely changing opinions of the people. On the other hand, you had very flashy ads, very advanced kind of advertisement against the voice and that pretty much did give results eventually. It wasn't until a few, a couple of months ago that the opposition actually started gaining a lead over the yes votes and now what you've seen the result is that no overwhelming number has voted no. But at the same time, you can actually also see is all that statement, a lot of the statements being made at the time were debunked. But one very crucial thing was this attempt to project that most of the indigenous communities or aboriginal peoples in Australia were not in support of the voice. For various reasons, they said that some did not think that the voice would be effective. Some did not think that the symbolic gestures would make any difference. But what we see right now is that every electoral district, every small unit administrative unit where indigenous people are an overwhelming majority or at least a majority in terms of demographics have voted overwhelmingly in favour of the voice. And in fact, in Northern Territory where indigenous people have a significantly large minority, there was a very narrow, a smaller margin, much smaller than the national average between the yes and the no vote. So it clearly shows that the indigenous peoples wanted this, but definitely the fact that the non-indigenous settler descendants of settler colonial people has actually been one over to the no side and that is definitely going to make an impact on how things are going to go forward. Because one of the things that it has startled is this one in a century kind of attempt to have the indigenous people be recognised as first peoples of Australia in the constitution and that sort of recognition would have had a massive impact in terms of reparations and even recognising the right over the land that have been colonised over the past several centuries. And so definitely that has been startled and that is a major setback that it will be very difficult to surpass or overcome in the coming years. So where does it go from here Anish, this struggle for true representation within what is the system in Australia? Because lip service has been paid, we talked I think a couple of months ago when I was there and reporting on the women's football world cup that all of those games and these events begin by an acknowledgement that the lands on which they are taking place are lands that were originally belonging to these First Nations communities but very little beyond that lip service. So in terms of the struggle for actual rights and representation, where do things go from here? Well we have to wait and see because obviously as I said that this constitutional amendment to recognise the aboriginal people as the first peoples has been startled. But nevertheless a different kind of if the government is serious about having an indigenous voice in the parliament they can take a legislative route without having this recognition part but having a sort of probably an elected advisory body that will advise the parliament and through a legislative route that is not difficult. But there are other pressing concerns that the indigenous people have taken up especially what as you mentioned the Uluru statement from the heart where there are other demands that are not that have yet to be taken seriously even by the Labour Party and for some of which includes Makarapa Commission which is basically a Truth and Reconciliation Commission that will be necessary to come to terms with the history of colonisation and well essentially genocide that actually did occur on the Australian continent and the stealing of land and a whole host of other atrocities that have been inflicted on them. So these facts have to be taken into this history, it needs to be acknowledged if the government is actually serious about reconciling and you know extending repressions it has other means that does not require a constitutional process which is a very difficult process because of a referendum it will be a far more difficult process but since the government has a majority of its own it can definitely do other it can actually pursue other ways of you know repairing some of the damages historical damages and atrocities that have happened and you know coming to terms with indigenous history a troubled history definitely but also a very rich and vibrant history that has often been ignored by the establishment of the mainstream. So these facts can be these actions can be taken but right now obviously the setback in the setback this is not definitely at the top priority obviously they're trying to you know recruit from that especially those indigenous activists who have been working on the ground for years now to actually make this happen but obviously the failure is going to have a major impact on how the mobilization is going to go forward from here but again as I said if the government is serious it can definitely go for other means of you know making amends but we do not see that forthcoming as of now. All right as Anish rightly pointed out the executive and legislative branches of Australian government remain in the hands of Antony Albanes and the Labour Party so we shall see how they proceed on that front. We'll let Anish go for today Anish but don't go too far because we'll have you back on DDDB very soon. For now our final bit for the day comes from Geneva where public services international is hosting or holding its world congress including of course the global unions federation that represent over 30 million public services workers around the world and of course the unions to which they belong. Jyotsana Singh is there. Jyotsana the fundamental question I think has been asked by what you mentioned was the theme of the conference to begin which is how do you put people before profit in a world that is facing the kind of you know multi-fronted crises that we are talking about that we are reporting on and that many of us are actually living through at this point. Yeah thanks for having me on the show and yeah I am sitting in Pal Expo which is a huge convention hall in Geneva and that is where the conference or the congress is being held. So just to tell you a little give it a little background so public services international is a network of trade unions which work in the public sector so these are the trade unions of the workers in the public sector so there is of course this strong feeling that how important a public sector is a public provisioning of services and the underlying theme constantly is against privatization in fact we have seen presentations here over the past few days which talk about not just that we have to fight privatization but something that goes missing in a lot of debates which is deep privatization also that's happening so the unions and the workers have been and the working class has been fighting against privatization because obviously it leads to multiple crises and in some cases they have won and for example in Kenya there was a presentation yesterday where the water services in a particular province were already privatized and they were pushed by some transnational corporations but how the workers of the sector came together and then they agitated, protested, lobbied etc and now there is a national law that the water won't be privatized so it was that case so that's happening but what is the congress about is so public services international was founded in 1907 and that is when they held their first congress which brought together and the idea was to bring together the working class people from across the world because the might of the capital is such that it works at a global level it does not work at a small territory level right so it is important that the workers also form those alliances across and ask for their rights so this was 1907 and this congress happens every few years where the unions which are members of there are 700 unions today which are members of PSI and in 154 countries so every few years they come together to see which what are the challenges and what direction should the movement take so that those are the deliberations that are happening and that's why we are here and the mood is not only bad which yeah we understand how the world looks like right now in fact yesterday I was hearing I mean I was watching something and it said that you know if you put your finger anywhere on the world map today it pains so but at the same time because so many working class people have come together there is you hear music like working class hero solidarity forever you also hear slogans like water is a public good you can't sell it so all of that so that is the larger mood and this is what the congress is about there are more than 1000 people here 12 to 1300 who are deliberating a range of issues at the moment yeah you just rightly pointed out that that at times like these solidarity becomes something that all of us draw strength from in various ways and also demonstrations of this solidarity put pressure on those who eventually make the decisions to go in a different direction and in many cases we've seen trade unions and activists and organized labor taking the lead whether it's to do with pandemic recovery whether it's to do with climate action whether it's to do with the state of the media like Anish was pointing out and but and this is true you know again wherever you point your finger whether it's Ukraine or Gaza or Australia as Anish was just pointing out right now there's also a great deal of as you were mentioning earlier intersectionality the discussions on gender and reproductive rights in the wider context of access to healthcare and and those kind of issues so so so give us let's let's leave our viewers with a sense of that little bit of that positivity and that solidarity that that you are witnessing at the moment so I think there are these certain cutting across themes which give us a sense of what's happening at the global level and where the solidarity is emerging one amazing thing that one sees is the number of healthcare work young workers who have come and from across sectors and this is something that PSI has taken up also as a campaign that we need to have younger people we need to talk to them we need to ask them what are their issues so and then there is also a huge presence of LGBTQI plus workers of across sectors because that is something which is always pushed down the carpet and but the workers are saying it cannot happen anymore we need our rights we need recognition we need to show up as someone said so these you we had one entire day discussing just the LGBTQI plus rights and issues and again there have been victories in many countries for example IKEA Netherlands gives paid leave for gender transition to transgender people and now they are expanding it to their other outlets across the world and that has happened because of the pressure that the workers and especially the all the workers so it is not just the duty of LGBTQI plus to ask for their rights but the working class movement there itself took it upon itself to ask for these rights and there have been victories so you keep you are hearing about it you're hearing about how the working class is being paid low and there are shortages of staff but in how they are talking to the governments and how they are protesting and agitating and trying to see that this should not continue so these are the themes and digitalization how that is actually not just taking away jobs but also becoming an exploitative system and extractivism in the capitalism so but people are standing up and therefore it is good to see in that sense that while we talk about challenges we are also talking about how to solve them and one thing that has emerged I think I must say this in every single session is alliance building that you have to form alliances if there are doctors for example there was an example so doctors who are employed so employment itself had become a barrier for the union so they started to go to the unemployed doctors and those who are still in the colleges the MBBS colleges so how to form alliances across and all of that has produced results a solidarity in alliances I think is how you ensure people over profit not otherwise absolutely as you were pointing out underlining the need for workers around the world to unite to combat issues that that seem that are bringing us together in opposition but they are bringing us together thanks very much for reporting on that from Geneva for us to us now we'll also wrap up this episode of daily debut here we've gone longer than our usual time so very quickly a chance to ask you to head to our website peoplesdispatch.org for details on all of these stories we'll be back of course tomorrow with more until then stay safe thank you very much for watching goodbye