 Salaam from the People's Dispatch studios here in New Delhi. I am Siddharth Ani and you're watching Daily Debrief. On the show today, it's no secret of course that the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer. A new report from Oxfam tells us exactly how much. In Tunisia, the movement against President Kai Said is intensifying and is Japan going to ignore international concerns and go ahead with dumping over a million cubic tons of contaminated water from the erstwhile Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean. First up, the richest 1% grabbed nearly two-thirds of all new wealth that's worth a whopping 42 trillion US dollars that's been created since 2020. This is almost twice as much money as the bottom 99% of the world's population. This is according to an Oxfam report entitled, Survival of the Richest, which was released on January 16th to coincide with the first day of the World Economic Forum. That's the annual orgy for the world's super rich held in the Swiss, sorry, ski resort of Davos. Extreme wealth and extreme poverty have increased simultaneously for the first time in 25 years, the report shows. And Gabriella Busher, Executive Director of Oxfam in a press release on the occasion said it like it is. I quote, while ordinary people are making daily sacrifices on essentials like food, the super rich have outdone even their wildest dreams. Just two years in, this decade is shaping up to be the best yet for billionaires, a roaring 20s boom for the world's richest. End quote. Joining us for details on this scathing indictment of trickle down economics is Dr. Abdul Rahman. Welcome back to this show. Abdul, good to have you in studio. It's a new year and we're having a conversation that I feel like we had probably exactly a year ago when the super rich of the world for the last previous time descended on Davos for the first time, I think after the pandemic and timed with it was the launch of Oxfam's report on global inequality. The report is out again. And for the first time in 25 years, extreme poverty is on the up on the increase, while extreme richness is also growing. Summarize for us the report in terms of key findings and numbers, please. See, the report, if you see in its totality will not be much different from what it was in the last year, except for the fact that they're having much more detailed set of statistics, which basically talks about how the expropriation of wealth, what they call the capturing of the wealth by the rich has increased tremendously in last two years, first two years of the decade. That's what they're saying. And they're saying that the pace of expropriation, the pace of capturing of the wealth by the rich has increased if we compare it with the last decade. So last decade, they were saying that it is around 54% of the wealth, all the wealth created in the decade was acquired by the rich, the super rich, one percent of the world's population. This time, it is first two years, 63% of the wealth has been acquired by the rich. So the rest of the people, 99% of the world's population is only getting the rest as 37% of the wealth. In terms, in absolute terms, around 42 trillion dollars the wealth, which was created in two years, 26 trillion dollars were expropriated by one percent of the world's population and only 16 trillion dollar reached the rest. In other terms, a billionaire adds around 2.17 billion dollars every day to its wealth. And in terms of dollar, if you see, if a person earns one dollar rest of the population, 90% of the population, if they earn one dollar, a millionaire adds to 1.17 million dollars to its wealth already. So when you are earning one dollar, they are earning 1.1 million dollars. That's the difference. So that is the level of inequality in the world. So that is the primary focus of the report. Apart from that, also they have country specific details saying that how in India, for example, 10 individuals own around 40% of the national wealth. That the inequality is so stark in a country which has the largest number of poor has increased, saw increased in the overall number of billionaires in the country. Apart from that, it also talks about how at the global level, because of these inequalities which are increasing because of the lack of taxation and so on and so forth, the countries, particularly the poorer countries in the world, are not able to spend enough on their basic social services. That basically creating further inequalities, which is creating poverty and which is hunger and other things. Just focusing on that taxation aspect for a minute, Abdul, because I guess as a proposal to get the world out of this situation, the report points to how, for example, some poor countries are spending four times more on financing debt than they are on things like healthcare. Taxation seems the only means or the only way out taxation and of course then redistribution of that wealth. Sort of expand on that idea a little bit. Well, that is one aspect of the report, which basically is the most significant, if you ask me, because the inequalities are rising and other things we know. By and large, there had been reports in previous years also about talking about the same things. But it emphasizes and very strongly emphasizes that the whole idea of trickle down, one of the executive director of the Oxfam basically said in the press release that this idea of trickle down, which was the mantra of the neoliberal period since late 80s, early 90s, that low tax rate creates further wealth and which the wealth reaches to the poor has completely failed. We have seen it does not work. And it only creates wealth at the top and at the cost of the rest of the people. So if you want to kind of control this inequality and inequalities are not something which is innocent, it creates dangers to democracy, to the society and so on and so forth. So if you want to control it and you want to save the democracy, save other, invest more money on innovation, invest more money on climate, to control climate change and so on and so forth, you need to increase the taxes for the rich. And it talks about windfall, again tax, it talks about other things, but it basically talks about reducing the emphasis on the indirect taxes. For example, the GST or the WAD and so on and so forth and increasing the direct taxes on income and wealth is very interesting statistic which the report gives that most of the wealth owned by the rich one percent is inherited wealth, not owned by these people. It is windfall from the investments they make. So they do not do any labor. Whatever the money they are getting is basically inherited or is basically a product of the wealth they already had. And therefore, they give a strange number, a strong number that around five trillion dollars is inherited by the rich heirs of the rich parents in the world and that is more than the entire GDP of Africa. So we need to increase taxes and we need to increase taxes on directly on the income to basically have enough money for the welfare and they give the example of how the higher taxes during the 70s, early 70s and 80s before that after the first Second World War basically created a situation where the economic growth happened at the time simultaneously with the larger development in social and sector education and health also. So we need to kind of imitate that regime. All right. Thanks very much. I will stick around because we're talking about Tunisia next and marking the anniversary actually of the movement that kicked off what is known as Arab Spring. So we'll be back with you in a minute. Thousands marched in the Tunisian capital and other parts of the country on January 14th against President Kaisaid's slide into authoritarian rule, demanding he step out, step down from office and reinstate the democratic objectives of the movement that overthrew Zeyn Arabiddin Ben Ali back in 2011 and launched the so-called Arab Spring revolutions around the region. The Central Avenue in Tunis, which was a key site for the revolution was crowded once again on Saturday with thousands of protesters waving flags and chanting that the people demand the fall of the regime. There was of course heavy police presence as well. The protests come after disastrous parliamentary elections last month in which just about 10 percent of the population cast their votes. They will, despite all the protests, of course, be a runoff election to follow on the 29th of January. Abdul is still with us in studio and has more on this developing story. Abdul, the Tunisian economy as well as, of course, politically, there's all kinds of turmoil as well. The economy is not in good shape at all. And people once again took to the streets on this important day in the history of Tunisia to voice their discontent. What's the latest? Well, on the anniversary of Ben Ali's removal from the power, 14th of January, there was a huge demonstration not only in Tunis, but in different other parts of Tunisia, which has a context. Similar to Ben Ali, there is a kind of a coup leader which all the political parties, majority of the political parties in Tunisia agree to. So there is, you can find some kind of similarity. And there is an anger about Kaisaid stealing the achievement. One success story from the so-called Arab Spring in 2011. In 2021, there was what is considered as a coup. And the people are angry at it. And that anger was expressed on Saturday. The Hughes gathering demanded Kaisaid's resignation and it also raised concerns about going back to Ben Ali's period where one person, Kaisaid's so-called new constitution, talks about how it has created a presidential system. It has kind of centered power in hands of the president. And that basically was the Ben Ali's system. So people are worried about that. And there is a huge political movement going on in Tunisia for last one year and so. And it seems on Saturday that on the anniversary of Ben Ali's removal, it was repeated, the protest demonstrations happened. And there are the, by the way, in meanwhile, Tunisia is also, the Kaisaid government is also conducting them, is going to conduct a second round of elections, which happened in December. And only 11% people participated in it. It seems Kaisaid is not getting the hint of, or not having any kind of understanding of what the popular mood is. But he has asked his administration to continue with the second round of elections, which will happen on 29 January. So, yeah, that is the situation. In terms of the opposition movement, a lot of it, which is being led by the Workers' Party and unions like the UGTT. What can we expect, sort of an intensification of this struggle on the ground? It looks like that there is already a talks about kind of that. In fact, if you see the history in last one year, in Nahada and its ideological affiliates have created a big group. So, Saturday's protests were not organized by one political party. There, Nahada organized one set of protests and the Workers' Party, the left-wing organized another set of protests. And those are protests where simultaneously held at different locations. And the popular participation was used in both the protests. So, there is already set of groups, which of course, ideologically, there is a division, there is a difference, there are differences. But despite those differences, there is one common point. Kaisaith is dangerous to Tunisia's democracy. He came to power, there is an understanding that he came to power because of the failures of the post-Arab Spring political leadership in Tunisia, which failed to tackle the economic issues in the country, failed to fulfill even to a limited extent the aspiration of the youth in the country, which participated in the removal of Ben Ali, a movement against the Ben Ali, nothing what they expected from the post-Ben Ali governments did not happen. And in fact, the Tunisia basically plunged into different kinds of corruption and inefficiency and so on and so forth. That was the reason that Kaisaith was elected. But none of the electorates, its scenes, were ready to accept a new regime, which basically wants, talks about efficiency, talks about dealing with corruption, but with the tools which were used by Ben Ali and what they call the dictatorship. And that is the, it seems that is the point which is sticking with the larger masses and that is the reason that the popular protests are increasing. If you see the mobilizations which were there earlier when the July 25th, 2020, when he 21, when he removed the government, the numbers were smaller. Now the numbers are increasing with each protest and UGTT coming into the movement has in fact further intensified the agitations. And it seems if this continues, if Kaisaith has not learned his lessons, the movement will be stronger in the coming days. All right. Thanks very much for both those updates. And finally, Japan will release more than a million tons of contaminated water into the sea from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant. Later this year, starting in either spring or the summer, Japan's Chief Secretary, Chief Cabinet Secretary, that is, Hirokazu Matsuno made the announcement. The International Atomic Agency says the proposal is safe, but neighboring countries have voiced serious concerns and called for an inclusive, consultative decision making process on what to do with this wastewater. The 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster was the worst of its kind since Chernobyl and the decommissioning of the plant will take anywhere up to 40 years. Every day it produces over 100 cubic meters of contaminated water. It's a mixture of groundwater, of course, as well as seawater and water used to keep the reactors cool. This is then filtered and stored in tanks with over a million cubic meters already on site, space at Fukushima is running out. Anish joins us for more details on this story. Anish, despite what seems like opposition or criticism from everyone except the United States of America, Japan is going ahead with plans to dump over a million tons of contaminated water from the Fukushima nuclear plant area into the ocean. What's the latest on it? What are local fishing communities, for example, protesting against at this point? Yes, so let's begin with the fact that Japan is trying to treat it as an issue of not contaminated water being dumped into the ocean, but as treated water that is being dumped into the ocean. They claim that they have treated it very rigorously and that the most harmful of radioactive waste has been taken out except for tritium, which they claim is not harmful to the environment or for humans in small quantities. Now, the thing is we do not know what these small quantities are. It's not been explained well. We do not know what will be the level of dumping this, how long it will take, how long these waste will be exposed to the ocean either. So that is one of the things that the fishing community are very concerned about. It is because the plan is not exactly quite clear how it will start, but it is set to start very soon. They're saying that it will begin by spring of this year or maybe if it's late, but it would still be happening by summer of this year. So this is a problematic thing. There is very, there is not enough transparency on the matter apart from the announcements that they have made. And if for the firstly, the fishing community are concerned about the fact that the wastewater will affect their livelihoods, it will affect marine ecosystems that can affect their harvest seasons and so on. Or for the matter that there can be like a market-wide paranoia that can affect their livelihoods, their possibility to sell their products into the market, even within Japan, let alone outside the country. So these factors are obviously something that concerns them. This is very similar to the concerns that Fisher Poke in the Pacific are worried about and not just the Pacific, but also China and South Korea and even Australians are quite concerned about how this will impact their marine ecosystem. And the problem, the bigger problem is that Japan is not entirely clear of how its plan is because obviously this is part of the entire decommissioning process of the Fukushima or what used to be the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Which will take about three to four decades and obviously taking out the wastewater is one of the first steps towards that process. So it needs to be done, obviously, but independent studies are lacking. There has been studies by the IAEA, but the report is yet to be published. There are already concerns being raised by United Nations human rights investigators, three of them at least have raised concerns, especially those concerned, those involved in human rights with respect to environment, with respect to food, with respect to livelihoods. And they have raised massive concerns about the fact that we do not really have the data to be sure that the kind of wastewater being dumped will be safe for everybody involved. Thanks very much for that update, Anish. That's a wrap for this episode of The Daily Debrief. For more details on these studies and all of the other work we do, we invite you, as always, to head to our website, peoplesdispatch.org. And of course, don't forget to follow us on the social media platform of your choice. We'll be back same time, same place tomorrow. Until then, goodbye.