 Hello and welcome to the International Daily Roundup by People's Dispatch where we bring you major news developments from around the world. Our headlines. Palestinian factions begin reconciliation talks in Turkey. Teachers set to boycott work as schools reopen in Zimbabwe. Brazil's former president Dula comes out with the letter defending Assange. Constitutional referendum passes in Italy with the support of establishment parties. And in our infocus section, we look at why India's farmers are opposing new agricultural laws. In our first story on Tuesday, representatives of the two major factions of the Palestinian movement, the Hamas and Fateh, met and began unity talks in Turkey's capital, Ankara. The meeting is a follow-up of another one where the general secretaries met early this month. The meeting is expected to finalize the implementation of the reconciliation plan agreed upon earlier. According to reports, both Hamas and Fateh have agreed to adhere to a peaceful transition of power on the basis of fresh elections in Palestine. The proposed elections will be based on the principle of proportional representation. Both Hamas and Fateh have been at odds since 2007 when Hamas took over control of Gaza expelling forces loyal to Fateh after disagreements over the formation of government after 2006 elections. After several failed attempts at reconciliation, the two factions came together recently after the announcement of Israel's plan to formally annex parts of the occupied West Bank in May. Meanwhile, Palestinian foreign minister Riyadh Maliki announced on Tuesday that Palestine would not take up the presidency of the Arab League. The decision comes as a mark of protest against the UAE and Bahrain, signing normalization deals with Israel last week. In our next story on Monday, the Zimbabwe Teacher Association said in a circular that its teachers will not be reporting to work once schools reopen on the 28th of September. The union, or ZIMTA, is the largest in the country, representing 42,000 educators. With the continuing freefall of Zimbabwe's official currency, the average salary of a teacher has now been reduced to equivalent of US dollars 30 to 35 per month. At this level of earning, the union complains. Teachers cannot afford to pay the school fees of their own children or spend on traveling to school and back. Hence they have declared incapacitation. Unless they get a salary of US dollars 50 at purchasing power parity, educators remain incapacitated and hence willing but unable to report a duty, ZIMTA stated. This was roughly the earning of a teacher until October 2018, when the RTGS was introduced as a currency in which payments were made. Until then, the Zimbabwe government paid salaries in US dollars, which was adopted in 2009 after the value of the Zimbabwe dollar was reduced next to nothing due to inflation. ZIMTA demands that the WHO's guidelines should also be strictly implemented regarding COVID-19 in schools and teachers must be paid a COVID-19 allowance in addition to their salaries. Last week, unsexual negotiations were held to prevent the strike by the teachers as the schools are set to reopen. Public Services Minister Paul Mavima has expressed willingness to hold further negotiation talks earlier this coming week. In our next story, on Monday, Brazil's former president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, published a letter defending Julian Assange as an international newspaper for the Guardian. In the letter, he argued that the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, should not be extradited to the United States. Julian Assange is currently undergoing hearings in the United Kingdom. The document shared by the British press warns about the risks surrounding the extradition of Assange to the US. In the letter, Lula accuses the US of, to quote, taking vengeance against Assange because he revealed the atrocities and war crimes committed by the US during the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and the torture to which the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay were subjected. In the letter, the leader of the Workers' Party, Pete, also affirmed that Brazilians are particularly indebted to Assange due to his work in making publics, documents and information about meetings. These were to do with the privatization of the pre-salt layer in Brazil. He added that it was through reading the documents revealed by Assange that Brazilians learned the relationship between the Tamil administration and executives in the North American oil giants Exxonmobil in Chevron. Rex Tillerson, the CEO of Exxon, was also president this meeting. He later became a secretary of state in the Donald Trump administration. Lula characterizes the accusation made by the US president against Assange as dangerous and false. The US has argued that Assange had helped Ilse manning a former member of the military and a source for the documents to hack government computers. Now, next story, earlier this week, the Constitutional referendum in Italy to reduce the size of parliament was ratified in a national vote with 69% support. The proposal was moved by the incumbent Democratic Party five-star movement coalition. It was also backed by other institutional parties ranging from the center to the far right. On the other hand, the proposal is opposed by the Italian left, mainly the communist parties. The referendum proposed to cut down the number of MPs in the chamber of deputies from 630 to 400 and from 350 to 200 in the Senate. According to reports, 51% of the country's total electorate participated in the two-day vote. The vote was initially scheduled to be held in March but was postponed due to the outbreak of COVID-19. The changes mandated by the referendum will be in effect from the next general elections. The establishment parties have justified the reduction in the number of MPs arguing that the expenses during the elections will come down. However, amending article 56 and 57 has ensured that the minor anti-establishment parties required an increased number of votes to win the seat. The opponents of the referendum slammed the reduction in the number of lawmakers as a means to decrease democratic representation. After the reduction, the number of lawmakers per 100,000 inhabitants in Italy decreased from 1.6 to 1. Communist groups including the Communist Refoundation Party, Italian Communist Party, the Partido Communista and Potelepol Popolo opposed the reduction in the number of MPs and called on people to vote no against the changes proposed in the referendum. And finally, in our in-focus section, we took, take a look at a controversy that has been brewing in India over the past couple of days. Two bills were passed in India's parliament over the weekend. These had to do with the agricultural sector but these bills were very strongly opposed by farmers and farmers movements. We take a look at why farmers and farmers movements are opposing these laws. During this pandemic, the Narendra Modi-led Bhartya Chanta Party government in India has pushed through multiple legislations that are a direct assault on people's rights. The latest among these are three bills on agriculture. The government passed these three bills brazenly flouting parliamentary rules and ignoring the protesting farmers across the country. Two of these were passed on Sunday, September 20th. The farmers and produce trade and commerce, promotion and facilities bill 2020 and farmers empowerment and protection agreement on price assurance and farm services bill 2020. Members from opposition parties walked out of the parliament and protest of the manner in which these bills were pushed through. However, the BJP government remained underturbed. On Tuesday, September 22nd, the third bill, Essential Commodities Amendment Bill 2020 was passed in the upper house of the parliament along with six other bills in the absence of opposition parliament members. What are these farm bills and why are farmers opposing them? The first bill is the farmers produce trade and commerce, promotion and facilitation bill 2020 which analysts have dubbed as the APMC bypass bill 2020. APMCs or agricultural produce market committees are essentially government regulated market places for agricultural produce. These markets are places where farmers can sell certain crops such as wheat and rice at minimum support prices which are fixed. The MSPs and the APMCs were introduced as a way of providing remunerative prices and assured procurement of crops to farmers. While the implementation of these policies has been far from perfect, the APMC bypass bill as it's being called is set to further weaken these provisions. This bill will set up a new unregulated market space called the trade area which will have no oversight. While the government is trying to present this as a way for farmers to access new markets, farmers have always been free to sell their produce to private players. However, this move will incentivize traders to move out of the regulated markets and farmers will find it increasingly difficult to get guaranteed prices for their crops. What is going to happen is, the big agribusinesses so-called aggregators, sponsors and processors and so on, they are going to dictate the prices. There is not going to be any control over them. The earlier system had a price support mechanism and also a mechanism of price support mechanism for the farmers and a price control for the consumers. These are being totally dismantled by these ordinances. Any kind of protection that the farmers would have had as far as price support is concerned, that is not going to be any longer there. The APMC's also have other advantages. They provide collective bargaining power to farmers and they also provide information to government to determine the prices of crops. With the government gradually pulling out of crop procurement it will have no way of gauging prices and intervening in the market in the interest of farmers if needed. The farmers will be left at the mercy of big capital. Linked closely to this is the Essential Commodities Amendment Bill 2020 which is also being called the Food Holding Freedom for Corporates Bill 2020. With the passing of this bill, various items such as cereals, pulses, oil seeds, edible oils, onions and potatoes have been removed from the list of essential commodities. This bill also essentially legitimizes holding of produce by private companies as it removes any limits on stock holding. They can thus take advantage of high prices with the government having no knowledge of what stocks exist with who, when and where. This is being done in the name of attracting private investment in post-harvest infrastructure. By the Essential Commodities Act amendment earlier this was actually brought in to ensure that there is no hoarding and so on so the consumers would also get the agricultural produce whether it is cereals, pulses, oils, oil seeds and so on at affordable prices. Now those controls have been removed and even foreign players as well as big agree businesses it promotes hoarding in a way and also there is no control there is no limits on how much they can keep. Finally the Farmers Empowerment and Protection Agreement of Price Assurance and Farb Services Bill 2020 which is also being called the Contract Farming Bill 2020. This bill basically allows the system of contract farming in India. However, 86% of the farming community in the country owns less than 2 hectares of land. The policy of contract farming shifts the power balance away from the farmer to the company especially when the land holdings are so small. The farmer will in effect become a land owning tenant acting in the interest of corporates. Three ordinances which have been brought will in effect lead to freedom for the agree businesses to exploit the farmers and push the farmers into a situation of slavery. That is what will happen. India has been going through an unrelenting agrarian crisis for the past many years now with rising number of farmers who are sites every year. Farmers have led many major movements reminding an improvement in conditions. However, these moves by the BGP government are in the opposite direction from what farmers want. With these changes which are happening where they are trying to paint a rosy picture that these big agree businesses will pay higher prices to the farmers and that kind of a campaign is being done that is not going to actually translate on the field. The small farmer would not have the bargaining power with these big companies and once they establish their monopolies they totally dictate the terms. Farmers have been demanding for the remunerated prices to be a legal right and for maximum procurement at these prices through the regulated market places. Farmers want freedom from debt. Instead, the government is dismantling whatever protection mechanisms exist and so farmer organizations have been leading protest actions for the past few months against these anti-farmer legislations. They have burned these bills they have sent Maranda to the prime minister and they have held rallies. Now 25th has been declared National Resistance Day to continue these protest actions. The All India Kisan Sabha that is the All India Farmers Organization which is leading the struggle has issued the slogan what the parliament can do the streets can undo. That's all we have time for today. We will be back tomorrow with more news from the world. Until then keep watching People's Dispatch. The All India Farmers Organization