 The United Nations Security Council has extended the mandate of its peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon by another year, but the resolution saw some fierce debate on how the force would function with the Lebanese representatives to the United Nations raising some serious concerns. Why did Lebanon have reservations about the extension of the UNIFILM mission? The SAIGAFTRA union, which represents hundreds of thousands of actors and other performers in the United States, and is currently on strike against the major film studios, is now asking members to vote on a strike action against the video game industry. What has forced the union to open up a potential second front? This is Daily Debrief coming to you as always from the People's Dispatch studios here in New Delhi. I'm Siddhanthani. Our top story, UNIFIL, the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, a multilateral force that has proved a stabilizing influence in the region since the mission began back in 1978, finds its mandate extended by a year. This came after the vote in the United Nations Security Council that Russia and China, both of course who are permanent members, abstained from the vote on the grounds that the concerns raised by the Lebanese government had not been addressed in the resolution proposed by France. Despite the objections, of course, none of the permanent members vetoed the resolution and it stands adopted. Dr. Abdul Rahman covers the region for People's Dispatch. Let's go over to him now. Abdul, good to have you with us on the show. The eventual decision to extend the mandate of UNIFIL, the UN's peacekeeping mission, not at all a unanimous matter, Lebanon raised some concerns and stating those or stating that they have not been accurately addressed. Russia and China abstained from the vote. Tell us how it went down and what are the consequences of this extension? Well, this extension, of course, as you rightly pointed out, is not unanimous. Ideally, most of the though all the countries agreed that there is a need for a peacekeeping mission in Lebanon and these international forces have contributed immensely in kind of keeping peace in the region, but the way it is extended was not acceptable to most of the countries. No, sorry, not most, at least some of the countries in the in the United Nations Security Council, primarily the Russia and China. Since Lebanon does not have the vote, of course, it did not reflect it. It was not reflected in the proceedings, but its representative was there while the voting was going on. And before the voting, it is specifically mentioned that the provision which basically was inserted in the draft resolution, which was prepared by France on the insistence of the of the United States, which says that the UN peacekeeping mission can patrol the reasons, particularly the southern Lebanon region without informing the military, Lebanese military, without informing the authorities and without coordinating. It implies that without coordinating with them. And that basically leads to a violation of Lebanese sovereignty because Lebanon has a full-fledged government, of course, because of the disputes over the border between Israel and Lebanon, this peacekeeping mission was necessitated. But it does not mean that there is no there is no government in Lebanon. So whatever it is doing, it has to basically coordinate its movements with the Lebanese army, with the Lebanese government. But the resolution is specifically mentioned. And as I said before, on the insistence of the United States that it should be allowed to move independently without the freedom of movement. What exactly without the consent of the Lebanese government. So of course, it was objected by the Lebanese representative. And this was basically supported by the Chinese and the Russian representatives in the Security Council meeting. And that's why they abstained during the war. This has basically a larger opposition within Lebanon. Despite the fact that we see that in media reports which came out following the resolution was adopted and the UNIFILS mandate was extended for one more year. Nazim Mikati, the caretaker prime minister in Lebanon, agreeing with the resolution saying that it addresses some of the concerns raised by Lebanon. But that is not the official version. Despite the fact that this is the prime minister speaking, on the forum of the United Nations Security Council, the official Lebanese position is this particular provision violates the sovereignty of Lebanon. So that is what is a technical issue with the UNIFILS extension this time. You can touch on maybe, Abdul, if you want a little bit on how this kind of also reflects the gaps that exist in the functioning of the Security Council itself. Because like you're pointing out, Lebanon is a country. It has, there is a government in place. There's a military in place. And if an outside force or even if it's a multinational peacekeeping force needs to have sort of keep that sovereignty in mind. But there was also mention of the specificities of the conditions on the ground not being considered. So what are the reasons for the opposition to this force and particularly this aspect of freedom of movement? Well, there are two different parts of your question. One, of course, is related to the realities on the ground because of which Lebanon particularly has officially taken a stand against this provision. By the way, this provision is not for the first time introduced. It was introduced last year when the extension was given for this, which expired on August 31st. For this, it was for the first time introduced, primarily on the insistence of it is said that US and Israeli, Israel. And this is, if you see that there is already a very intense situation on the border in southern Lebanon. And Hezbollah, one of the resistance groups which was very instrumental, very important, which played a very important role in pushing the Israeli's forces, which occupied southern Lebanon for decades to go kind of to liberate that space, is still operating in that area, provides assistance to attempted occupation of Israel. And it says that if a UNIFIL is allowed to move freely, it mostly is expected to act as an spy for the Israeli occupation. Because there has been instances in the past where Hezbollah's resistance have been coordinated with the Lebanese, sorry, Israeli forces. And that basically Hezbollah has objected to. So that becomes the part of the reason because of which both the Hezbollah and the officially Lebanon and other countries have objected to this. As far as the larger issue of UN Security Council's working is concerned, of course, if you see just a few days back, there was an exchange, there was a debate related to Mali. And similar issues were raised. Mali was saying that they do not want the extension of the UN peacekeeping. Of course, that is withdrawn, but they do not want the sanctions, the United States Security Council sanctions to continue. But despite a Malian objection, there were majority of the Security Council members who were ready to extend it. Thankfully, Russia vetoed it and basically respecting the Malian wish. But if you see majority of the countries, particularly the West, what we call West, the United States and its allies in Europe, those who are permanent members of the Security Council, they basically are unanimous when it comes to kind of imposing a particular kind of agenda. And the voices from the Third World, from the developing countries, from Africa and Latin America and other parts of the world are mostly neglected. Their concerns are not taken into consideration despite the fact that this is a UN body, which is based on a charter, which says that it is made of the sovereign independent states and their wish is primary. Their wish, their consent is primary when it is on making and deciding on its policies. But most of the time, when it comes to the weaker countries, relatively economically weaker countries, the Third World countries and others, the West try to impose its policies on it. And so what happened in Lebanon, given the largest geopolitical calculations between Israel and US in the region and France also, basically their wish gets imposed and the concerns raised by Lebanon is ignored, as there was an attempt to do the same in the case of the Mali. And there are several other instances. Yeah, not just their wishes, Abdul of course, it's because the West knows best. Yeah, and just finally, we've seen a wave in, you were mentioning, Africa as well. In sub-Saharan Africa, we've seen a series of regime changes there and anti-French sort of sentiment playing a part in that process. Do you see any of that connecting in any way to Lebanon? Not in that way, of course, because Lebanon itself, there is a political turmoil going on in the country for more than a year now. If you want to extend it further, you can say more than five, six years now. And because of that turmoil, there is no government in Lebanon as such. And there is no, apart from the Hezbollah, which is also unlike in Africa, where the progressive forces are not represented mostly in the electoral politics or in the country's parliament, in Lebanon that is not the case. Hezbollah still has a strong presence in Lebanon's parliament and there are talks going on for the last one year to kind of form a government. So the kind of political equation which basically brings the army into the power which was there in Africa is not the case in Lebanon. Of course, that part is not there. But the larger argument related to the attempts by the colonial countries, and in both the cases, it is France. Lebanon was a colony kind of mandate of France as most of the West African countries. So the treatment, the behavior of France remains the same, despite the fact that there are domestic variations, differences. Thanks very much for that Abdul. And our second bit today, the SAG-AFTRA union announced on Friday that it is seeking authorization from its members to begin a second strike. This time, the aim is at the video game industry. After negotiations on a new video game contract reached a stalemate, union leadership has been pushed to seek for strike action approvals as bargaining tools in the struggle to win wage increases and protections from artificial intelligence. In a statement, SAG-AFTRA's president, Fran Gresher, blasted the video game companies for their greed and disrespect. The terms of both the wage negotiations are pretty similar, even if the specificities are slightly different. Anish joins us now for more on both the similarities as well as the differences and why the union's hand has been forced. Anish, so SAG-AFTRA, they're clearly looking to kind of open up a second front with the lack of movement on negotiations. Both for, of course, wage increases as well as other conditions. Tell us what is sort of happening in regard to the fight with the video game industry. Of course, it's all connected more and more these days with the digitization of both mediums or all the mediums. So yeah, what's happening with the video game studios and the unions and why are the union members being asked to vote now for the right to threaten industrial action? Well, let's begin with the fact that the current contract that they are working on, that SAG-AFTRA and the video games producers are working on, is already expired. They are working on an extension. The contract actually, previous contract expired in November last year. And so there's a one year extension that is happening and that's pretty much what is in effect right now. And the extension was only put in place primarily because the union expected good faith negotiations with the producers. But that hasn't happened. There has been like what the statement that we see right now is pretty much showing that there is a stalemate and stalemate is a very mild term considering that it has been months of negotiations. And the next round will be happening in September. And it's pretty much on the same day that they will be having a vote on the strike. So it's pretty much, they haven't pushed to this decision. And we must begin with that unlike a previous set of like the actor strike and the practice strike that has been that is happening in tandem against film producers. This is a more or less expected outcome because there has been a significant delay in actually getting a resolution and not just resolution, but also the fact that previous conditions like we're also not very great to begin with. We're looking at performers and artists who suffered a lot during the COVID-19 pandemic. And let's begin. And this also pretty much points out the fact that since it's a video games industry, you won't be having A-listers being the face of the strike as media would like to portray. These are pretty much your average contract workers who pretty much make more or less you know the average daily wage workers like the salaries of most daily wage workers in the yeah sorry hourly wage workers in the United States and California. So this and many as many of them pretty much have suffered a lot like pretty much because of like real time wage decline and you know stagnation. And that is something that has affected pretty much artists of all kinds. This includes stunt artists who are pretty much at the center of the discussion here. Safety procedures in studios, the fact that there is the working conditions have not really developed or progressed from the previous strike that actually happened in 2016. So this is something that brings out a whole lot of other issues that obviously the SAGAFRA writer strike brought up in addition to the kind of issues that they brought up the other strike the Hollywood strike brought up. So this kind of also highlights a significant section of you know job opportunities for the same set of artists who are affected in a very different way by a very different industry not a very different industry it's quite connected but in the terms of you know technical and professional skills that are required to be in that industry it's different in many ways. Already I would assume Anish a lot of these game studios A are based around the world and B also then position their jobs or ship their jobs out around the world. So perhaps that becomes a negative point on the bargaining table but explain to us some of the differences and commonalities that you see between what actors as well as other performers and of course writers are facing when it comes to the Hollywood strike and when it comes to the video game industry. Well the similarities would be the fact that it's pretty much the same set of demands primarily because it's the same kind of crisis that they're facing. They're looking at real wages coming down because of the recent cost of living prices that has affected everybody and it's not just these performers and artists but pretty much everybody across the sector and around the world actually. So this is nothing new and this is something that we're seeing in different strikes and industrial actions and multiple negotiations that are happening in the US and around the world as well. So it's the same set of demands that are coming up primarily because they want to reinforce whatever gains they made in the previous strike and the previous strike that actually went on for 11 months in 2016 against the video games industry pretty much brought out a significant level of gains especially you know workplace safety and wages and much of that has been undone primarily because of the economic fallouts of the COVID-19 pandemic and this is what the new strike if it happens and if it gets passed by the union will be addressing as well. But on top of that you also have additional issues of you know like because video games industry would be the first to actually has is the first to be impacted by the by the advent of AI and the manner in which AI is being you know used by the video games producers industry is something that more or less does this work of replacing actors and it's not even number of job outsourcing at this point it's pretty much just completely vanishing jobs that are necessary and there is no you know attempt by the producers to actually make replacements or you know make sure that workers are not affected. There's also a work of like a matters of work safety sorry workplace safety that is kind of different from you know your average film studios because you're looking at much of you know what we understand from you know major game developers they pretty much depend on stunt performers who are you know and actors and performers who pretty much give the you know the motion image and everything the technology is pretty much based on actual humans you know performing these things in a studio exactly and the fact that they are undermined and you know overlooked in the current scenario pretty much shows a real crisis in itself and the kind of like fact that there is no you know on-site medic which is something that actually exists in film studios shows that there is it's just a tip of the iceberg of how workplace safety is not that big of a priority for the industry at least industries owners and that creates a problem with the workers you also have the same set of demands when it comes to protections with wage increases there is a 10 percent there's a demand for 10 percent 11 percent retroactive wage hike that that would account for the the real wage in wage laws that happened during the COVID-19 pandemic but and also four plus four percentage annual wage increase in the neck over the next two years something that is necessary for them to actually make a decent living as well for most of them because they think exactly and also you know the minimum staffing something that does not really exist in most tv's sorry video game studios is also something that impacts these workers and artists and they pretty much you know have depend a large part of that through these jobs as well to sustain themselves when they are not you know in film studios working so this is something that will be highlighted in the current set of negotiations the fact that producers are not really you know taking these factors into account is something that is you know a matter of concern for the union and that is something we will see that is the reason why there's a need or necessity for a second front to open up in the video games industry for the strike to actually make an impact on you know about 120,000 workers we are looking we are not talking about a-listers we're talking about average workers who pretty much sustain much of the work of the industry you know both industries. All right thanks very much Anish appreciate you continuing to track the SAGAPRA strike for us that's a wrap for this episode of Daily Debrief and also brings to an end our week's coverage of the news and other events on People's Dispatch for more such stories we invite you to head to our website as always peoplesdispatch.org don't also forget to follow us on the social media platform of your choice we'll be back same time same place next week until then stay safe thank you for watching goodbye