 Thousands took to the streets once again over the past week in various parts of Pakistan to protest the growing economic crisis, particularly the cost of energy. How is one of the most populous countries in the world coping with a situation to which there seems no end in sight? In a new report, the Physicians for Human Rights Network has shown the clear correlation between the Israeli occupation and the mental and physical health of the women of the Gaza Strip. The question is anybody listening? And a group of Australian lawmakers will visit the United States to lobby for an end to the political persecution of WikiLeaks founder and publisher Julian Assange. Will they manage to break the code of silence around the Assange case in the US establishment? Salams you're watching Daily Debrief coming to you from the People's Dispatch Studios here in New Delhi, I'm Siddharth Ani. In the latest round of public protests and the continued inability of the government in Pakistan to deal with the ongoing economic and political turmoil in the country, thousands took to the streets against the rising costs of electricity and petrol. The cost of electricity, for example, has doubled over just the past three months in Pakistan, and petrol has crossed the 300 rupee mark to the liter. In several parts, including the country's financial hub of Karachi, protests turned violent. Last year's massive flooding across Pakistan, the power vacuum following the no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Imran Khan, and an inflation rate that has topped a record 36% have all resulted in anger and frustration for the people of Pakistan. We go over to Prashant now for an update on the situation from the ground. Prashant, good to have you on Daily Debrief. Let's start with the latest that you're hearing from reports on the ground. What is the situation? We've of course seen a week of protests against increasing price rise that's continuing to be unabated in Pakistan. That's it. I think it would not be wrong to say that Pakistan is going through a crisis of many dimensions actually. We talked about this in earlier episodes on the one hand, we have a political crisis that has stretched on for more than a year, almost a year and a half right now. And this has been compounded and it has sort of worked very closely in some senses with an economic crisis that has continued to devastate the ordinary people of Pakistan in terms of their livelihoods, in terms of their expenditures, and every aspect of their life has been hit. Of course, there are also security issues and all of this has also been sort of compounded by the kind of repression that the Pakistani government earlier, of course, the Shabashiri government and now the Kedega government as well, that various governments and bureaucracies are enforcing on the repression people and unleashing on people, the people who are protesting, critics, etc. So in every aspect of life, there's clearly a crisis. But right now what is really on top of people's minds is the increasing power bills and the impact has been quite drastic. Like you said, last week saw a number of protests. There was a shutdown on Saturday, people in many parts of the country complaining that they're not even able to earn enough to afford electricity bills. And people looking at drastically changing their lifestyles, traders, for instance, looking at completely reducing the number of hours they are trying to stay open. And I think the important thing to note here is that two or three things, two or three important things. One is that a large part of this is because of the IMF. Now, the IMF has part of giving a loan to Pakistan has insisted that people pay the government charge for electricity rates at the actual price as it moves subsidies to whatever extent possible, that is actually contributed. And this has been a condition for the IMF to give the loan of $3 billion to the Pakistani government and the Shabashiri government before it left, accepted these conditions and now the Kedega government has implemented it. So that's one big factor. The other factor, of course, is that is also a product of the privatization of the power sector, which took place in the 90s. We'll soon have an interview with Taimur Rahman of the Masjid-Kisan party, where he explains this. But one interesting thing he says is that today, the crisis that exists is because what is called the independent power producers who took over the electricity sector in the 90s as a result of this privatization basically are getting huge amounts of money from the government. And yeah, that has actually contributed to this as well. So definitely what we're seeing is that the common people, the capitalist is always benefiting, the richer section is benefiting, whereas the poorer people are really struggling and suffering through this massive increase. And of course, there's not just electricity prices that are increasing. Overall, inflation is quite high as well. We're talking especially, food inflation is also pretty high. So all of this combined together is really hitting the pockets and the wallets of the people of Pakistan who are looking at having to make some drastic changes. And this has led to, like you said, this outrage, this anger, in fact, I believe one of the employee of a private company was also assaulted by angry people. So we have a situation where, like I said, there is a government which is a caretaker government and has no real authority. And on the other hand, the living conditions have become so difficult that people are out on the street. So very difficult times ahead, especially in the coming months for the people of Pakistan. Prashant, we saw reports coming in over the weekend of a meeting between the chief of the Pakistani army and a group of those very same capitalists that you were mentioning who perhaps managed better than most to weather the conditions that we've seen in Pakistan. Of course, we also have before this the pandemic, the floods that hit the country in a massive way and climate change that's not going anywhere. In all of that, there was some mention, though, of perhaps moving away from this IMF kind of lead way of going deeper into a debt cycle. Do you see there being any realistic political will to sort of make that kind of a hard shift? Actually, to be honest, no, really, because in the sense that we need to sort of look at what the political situation in Pakistan right now, like we said, we've talked about this before on the one hand, we have Imran Khan still in jail, who is arguably probably one of the most powerful forces in Pakistani politics despite being in jail. We have the older establishment parties which were in power until recently. There now is a caretaker government because as per the rules, the election has to be managed by a caretaker government. But there's still a lot of uncertainty regarding when the elections might happen because there is this whole argument of having to do a delimitation process, redraw the borders of constituencies. And now there's a lot of confusion, will it be completed in November? Will it be completed in December? Are we looking at elections in February? The original elections are supposed to be held in November. So, you know, we're looking at, say, something, say, probably, say, let's say, February elections. And until then, there's definitely going to be no chance that any government can do anything of that sort. And from now on, from now to February, we are going to see massive attempts by the Pakistani establishment on one hand to make sure that Imran Khan somehow doesn't contest both legal measures and by kind of assaults on his political machine in the arrest of leaders of his party, etc., etc. Imran Khan is definitely going to try to resist it. But of course, it's very difficult to say, you know, who will come out on top in February. And even when the elections are held in February and you're going to have, suppose somebody gets a decisive enough mandate to form the government, there's a best with the Pakistani military, which, you know, is really the power behind the throne has always been so in Pakistan. So, keeping all this in mind, of course, the IMF, it's not the IMF has given a loan and gone away. Like we talked about for so many countries, these are cycles of loans. You take a loan, just say a couple of years later, you're back to having to take a new loan to often meet some of the conditions from the earlier loan as well, right? So, you know, even if a new government comes to power, every government has come to power saying we'll do something different, but has ended up following the IMF path. So, part of it is a global problem which remains unaddressed, the question of that itself. Part of it is specifically unique to Pakistan, which is that in the kind of political crisis that exists right now and the lack of certainty regarding who will form a government and under what conditions. It is very difficult. And also the fact, of course, that none of the contenders have really come up with any serious, maybe, you know, any serious, none of the relevant contenders or the strong contenders have come up with any serious proposals to actually get out of this cycle as well. So, keeping all this in mind, you know, very difficult to see an end to this cycle right now. Alright, so we'll leave it there for today. Thanks very much for that update on what's going on in Pakistan. And we'll, of course, continue following updates or developments there on DailyDViv. And next up, together with the Gaza Community Mental Health Program, the Physicians for Human Rights Network has released a new report examining the consequences of Israeli human rights violation in the occupied territory on the physical and mental health of over 400 women who participated in the two-year-long collaborative project. As a result of Israel's military occupation, blockade and ongoing aggression, the report says, and I quote, women experience persistent, intergenerational, and long-term mental and physical outcomes that manifest throughout their lives. They felt threatened, were injured by Israeli military, lost family members, and faced varied restrictions due to Israel's blockade. We cut across now to Ana Vrachar of the People's Health Dispatch who draws a clear link between the exposure to human rights violations and psychological distress. Ana, as always, it's good to have you with us on DailyDB. First up, if you could share with us some of your key findings, from your reading, of course, of this latest report and an ongoing and critical issue. So the study we're discussing is actually a joint project between Physicians for Human Rights Israel and the Gaza Community Health Program. Essentially, it focuses on Palestinian women living in the Gaza Strip and explores the interactions between the human rights violations between the Israeli occupying forces with the mental and physical health of Palestinian women. The research included over 400 Palestinian women living in Gaza, and of course, they have all been exposed to human rights violations over the course of time due to the Israeli military occupation, to the blockade. So essentially, they have been exposed to human rights violations due to the military occupation, to the blockade, and to the ongoing military aggression in the region. So when we look at the results of the study, what we see is that it highlights the link between human rights violations and mental health. So essentially, what it shows is that the human rights that Palestinians are exposed to every day are having a measurable impact on their mental health, and of course, on their physical health and on the overall well-being of Palestinians. So the consequences of the violations of human rights, of course, they differ, but one of the crucial things that this report highlights is that it's essentially not about individuals, it's about communities, it's about families, it's even about generations of people who are now suffering from severe mental health issues because of the occupation. So another thing that I think it's worth mentioning here is that the study does well, is to show that the mental health issues that have appeared in the Gaza Strip are not on a political issue, they're very much political. So when we talk about mental health in Gaza, we are talking about the political context of suffering, of trauma that has been present for years, for decades, and essentially this shows that there has to be a shift of perspective when we talk about health in Palestine and when we talk on the global level about what can be done. So going beyond that, what the research also does is essentially expose the extent of the human rights violations that we have seen from the Israeli occupying forces. Also when it comes to the intensity and to the frequency, because what many of the people who have participated in the study have said and have repeated is that essentially the frequency of the attacks, the fact that you cannot feel secure at any time is one of the major stressors and it's one of the major causes of ill mental health among Palestinians. So the report is a good attempt to go beyond just showing what the problem is, but it also underlines the importance of taking political action on all levels to essentially change the situation that we are seeing in the Gaza Strip right now. Right, and maybe through the lens of some of these personal testimonies given by those who participated in the study, you can outline for us some of the consequences actually of Israeli continued Israeli military presence and action in the Gaza Strip. Starting from the basics, the findings of the study are based on research, which included both surveys, but also interviews with women living in the Gaza Strip. The population is very important to Hailein because it's all women between 25 years of age and 45 years of age, so very young women. More than half of the 400 or so women who have taken part in the research are living in the refugee camps. And what's also very important to highlight is that over 90% of them are unemployed or and are living below the poverty line. And so when we look a bit at the concrete mental health issues that the women highlighted when talking to the researchers, of course, very unsurprisingly, the first thing they spoke about was fear. And so fear that takes very different forms, it's either fear of that, but it's also fear of the future bombings or attacks on the Gaza Strip. So other women talked about the constant fear that they felt when they thought about losing the people they love, losing family members, losing friends, because of Israeli aggressions that continue all the time and which leave them in a constant state of anxiety, actually. And then the second part that I think we can just talk briefly about is that because of this very traumatic experiences that the women are exposed to, many of them lose any hope. It can be, they lose hope in any hope when it comes to secure life, when it comes to stability, but it's also hopelessness about how things will change and if any stability will be achieved in Gaza with time. So, and this is something that's also a direct consequence of the aggression and of the occupation, which essentially targets people this way and which hopes to cause this kind of hopelessness in order to break the spirit of the Palestinian population. But as we have seen before, while people are feeling hopeless and while this kind of traumas are being experienced in this way, we also bear witness to the fact that women in Palestine, along with many other comrades in Palestine, are not giving up on the fight. So it's essentially while the mental health is being impacted, we cannot really talk about the Israeli aim being fulfilled. And then, going beyond that, one other thing that the study makes a point about is the issue of emotional blunting, which essentially means that women have said that they have become completely decentralized to any kind of emotion. So, essentially what they're saying is that they have seen so much devastation, so much destruction that they're essentially, they're feeling numb and that's it. So, this is also a very severe impact of the trauma that the report talks about. And it essentially shows how people are feeling completely drained and detached from what is happening and essentially detached also from everything that surrounds them. And then finally, of course, just to conclude this, what many of the women who have taken part in the study have said is that as they live in a conflict zone, even when there's a temporary wind down of violence, they feel they are defined themselves in this constant state of anticipation and of anxiety of what's going to happen next. And essentially this brings to situations where even harmless sounds or other inputs such as fireworks, they can trigger extreme anxiety attacks because they remind them of bombings and of the acts of violence that they're witnessing every day. So, yeah, just one final point that I think it's also quite well reflected in the report is that essentially it makes, it really wants to highlight that when we are talking about the mental health of Palestinian women in the Gaza Strip, we're not talking about something individual. So it's not an individual problem when women are reporting this level of stress, of fear, of anxiety, of numbness, but it's essentially something that's the cause of the violence that takes place every day in Gaza and that essentially cannot be resolved by let's call it normal means by just policy intervention or increasing health services, that is essentially a political question. So the mental health of women as well as men, as well as children in the Gaza Strip can only improve if the political context there changes. All right, thank you very much Anna for that update. We'll leave it there for today. And finally six Australian lawmakers including a former deputy prime minister by the name of Barnaby Joyce are set to visit the United States of America. They're there to lobby for an end to the persecution of WikiLeaks founder and publisher Julian Assange who's currently incarcerated in HMS Belmarsh, a high security prison in the United Kingdom. Assange faces extradition to the United States where he will then be tried under the Espionage Act and faces a prison sentence of up to 175 years. The lawmakers formed a cross-party delegation including liberals, greens, labor and even an independent representative. They're expected to meet members of the US House and Congress as well as senior officials at the state and justice departments. Assange is of course an Australian citizen and current prime minister, Anthony Albaness has expressed frustration at not being able to find a diplomatic solution to his persecution by what is one of Australia's closest allies. Anish joins us now for more on the latest in the ongoing Julian Assange saga. Anish, good to have you back on the show. We've of course spoken about Julian Assange and his persecution often on Daily D-Beef and elsewhere on People's Dispatch. What is the latest with this round of visits specifically to lobby, I guess, the US government and US lawmakers and seek some support against the move to extradite him to the United States? What are the sort of reactions we're getting the response from within the United States? And of course, then we'll talk about what's happening elsewhere in the world. Well, within the United States, the response pretty much, at least from the official, the official response pretty much means that there's pretty much no response actually. They do not want to probably entertain any kind of speculation, but also not want to entertain the scheme that is coming. This scheme of lawmakers from Australia. What is interesting is that this is probably one of the most politically diverse groups that is going to be lobbying for Assange in the US right now. Usually what we have seen so far is there would be the beginning group and obviously progressives and socialists and I've been reading this. Very rarely can you see whether the conservatives are the right wing within the Australian parliament, like at least a section of them actually vouching for Assange, primarily based on the fact that he's an Australian citizen and he's entitled to be returned home and not scan trial in the US code of law. And that is something that would probably be the foundation of their argument at the point. But then there are also questions about how or whether you as a jurisdiction or to charge or convict, sorry, to charge or put to trial to people or foreigners on charges of espionage that doesn't really matter outside, that shouldn't ideally matter to non-US citizens. But nevertheless, there will be like contours of the case that we've spoken about. And obviously, there is very significantly, these people will also be talking about Assange's deteriorating health within the prison, within the Belmarsh prison. And that is something that is kind of new because obviously what we have seen in previous Scott Morrison government which was a conservative, I think government alliance government, they usually shied away from even acknowledging that Assange is virtually ice-creamer from the world and the fact that his health has been deteriorating to a great extent, including during the COVID pandemic when his block was actually on transmission factor in the prison system. And so this is definitely a welcome change and clearly shows that the Australian political elites are kind of waking up to a very popular demand. There is definitely a massive movement on the ground that is actually calling for Assange's return, not just because he is an Australian citizen but also for the fact that he is somebody who exposed war crimes and the fact that he actually exposed the empire for some of the worst atrocities that we have seen in the century. Yeah, and in that sense, Anish, this case, not that we are short on examples but becomes another sort of shining light of US exceptionalism where you on the one hand talk about how other nations are sort of stamping on the rights of journalists and on press freedoms. But on the other hand, this is a persecution that's continued for easily over a decade. What are the kind of responses we're seeing from other parts of the world as a result of all of this growing, like you said, movement to secure Assange's release? Well, some of the more interesting moments that we, sorry, responses that we're seeing around the world would be the fact that the Western establishment is not necessarily united on this matter two hours away. Like we have seen significant sections within the European, in different European governments and even the European Union, bringing up the fact that Assange is a victim of a regression of the press and also his, if he's convicted or even extradited, it is going to have an impact on press freedoms across the world and not just the US or the United Kingdom. And the same thing you've seen, but we do not see that kind of diversity, obviously, in the US establishment and a lot of them are quite silent about it. The violence around this issue, yeah. Yeah, exactly. There is a very calculated silence in a manner that, like obviously some of them, you have had some of the so-called progressives, you know, watching for Assange in the past, but one Biden administration came in and fact that the indictment was continued under them and the extradition request was continued under them. There has been a significant level of silence that is quite, you know, that's quite unspeakable. And it makes it, it clearly shows that, like as long as there's a liberal phase to the empire, there is definitely not going to be much resistance within the empire. Nevertheless, you've seen in different parts of the rest, like especially in certain US allies, having brought out the fact that, you know, sections within US allies, and I'm talking about people in the government, people in parliaments, lawmakers, political leaders, talking about, you know, even including former heads of state, heads of government, talking about Assange and calling for his release. And this is something that has also resonated around the world. For instance, China has definitely called out the US for its hypocrisy, as we pointed out, on the fact that like it often uses, you know, uses any kind of, you know, arrest that happens in China as a kind of free press or press freedoms or, you know, the right to its free expression or whatever. But when it comes to Assange, there is just absolutely no statement and all the talk is about, and the US tries to justify it as, you know, a very natural process of the law, that the law is taking its own course and it should be allowed to vent the fact that it was a very clearly political indictment that has been, yeah, not politically going to be a indictment, it was a very clearly politically political indictment because it was, you know, raised by somebody who was a political appointee itself. So under the Trump administration. So that clearly shows that, you know, around the world Assange pretty much it's become the symbol of, you know, of, you know, how empire, empire's region goes out of its own sovereign territory. It is actually trying to, it has essentially put somebody in a different country, a foreign citizen in a different country under arrest under confinement for more than, you know, nearly 12 years now. And in this time span, it has actually vilified significantly which one person and his body of work in different manners of thought and you've seen different people in the government that were viewed from the Obama administration to the vital administration currently actually vilifying them. So his stand, the fact that this case is happening, that fact that there is an extension booming is definitely raised alarms across the world. And even, you know, the mainstream media in the U.S. is kind of worried at this point. You have to remember that. And that is pretty much the situation that we're looking at where even with the, you know, significant major pillars of the West are actually quite worried about this exhibition but there is nothing being done on that matter on a substantial manner within the U.S. at the very least. All right, Anish. We leave it there. Thanks very much for that update on the situation around Julian Assange and his continued persecution. That's a wrap for this episode of Daily D-Beef. As always, we invite you to head to our website, peoplesispatch.org for more details on these stories and all of the other work we do. Don't also forget to give us a follow on the social media platform of your choice if you haven't already. We'll be back same time, same place tomorrow. Until then, thank you for watching. Stay safe and goodbye.