 Hello and welcome to Daily Debrief brought to you by People's Dispatch. I'm Pragya. Armenia and Azerbaijan are locked in a renewed dispute and as Russia tries to mediate, the European Commission and the United States are putting skin in this game. Angry and exhausted workers are striking in the United Kingdom and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is under fire for thinking up rules to block protests instead of solving their problems. Bad news from the Australian Open in Melbourne as 22-time Grand Slam champion Rafael Nadal calls it quits after yet another injury. In 2020, Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a bitter war. The Lachin corridor, which links Armenian residents in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region with Armenia, remains the centre of friction. Russia is mediating this crisis but is increasingly under pressure as Armenia gets renewed attention from the European Commission and other places. Abdul from People's Dispatch is with us in the studio for more. Hi, Abdul. Abdul, can you give us some of the recent history of the Lachin corridor and why it has become a centre of friction again? Well, as you rightly pointed out, there is a long history behind it but at this, what is happening at now basically is related to some environmental activists. That's what the Azerbaijanis are claiming, have moved into the Lachin corridor since December last year and they have, according to the Armenian claims, they are blocking the movement of people from the Nagorno-Karabakh, the reason where Armenians, the reason which is under dispute between the Armenian Azerbaijan for a very long time now and that basically is causing, according to Armenian version is causing the kind of problem for the economy of the region, for the movement of people and Armenia claims that that may lead to the humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh. Though Russians have, who are there as a peacekeeping force since 2020 are denying such claims but Armenia is quite insistent on that. I think earlier this week there was a statement made by the Armenian President which also though it was, it was basically about the having and exercises of the collective security organization, treaty organization that led to speculation in the western press and in other places that the conflict is basically going to be renewed again. So that is the question at this moment. It should also be noted that though there is a peacekeeping mission headed by Russia and there had been bilateral talks, trilateral talks between Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia since 2020 onwards, there were minor clashes between the forces, Armenian forces and Azerbaijan forces. In September dozens of soldiers were killed from both sides when there was a eruption of a sudden conflict in the region. Armenia has also claimed that a part of its territory, apart from the Nagorno-Karabakh is also directly under control of Azerbaijan since 2020 and Russia should do something to, asking Armenia to Azerbaijan to withdraw its forces. So these are the issues which basically has led to a kind of eating of the conflict at this moment and led to the speculation that there will be another conflict in the larger region. Right, Abdul, Abdul what are the kind of stakes that the other countries in the region and beyond imagine for themselves or see themselves as playing in this particular dispute? Well, this is a very complex situation at this moment. If you see traditionally it was considered that since the dissolution of the Soviet Union and since 1988 when the Nagorno-Karabakh issue emerged, Armenia has a very close relationship with Russia and Azerbaijan was kind of looking towards West traditionally ever since the 1991. But since 2020 the alignments have changed in a very complex way. Despite the fact that Armenia was considered a close Russian ally, Russia did not intervene in any decisive way when the Azerbaijan forces went in and captured a part of Nagorno-Karabakh and that led to a kind of a realignment as I said before. Meanwhile Turkey has also come into the picture and has become a close ally to Azerbaijan and Turkey's help was very crucial during the 2020 conflict which led to Azerbaijan is gaining upper hand vis-a-vis Armenia. But there is also an angle of European powers playing some politics in the region and of course the US. The US has been trying to push Azerbaijan for its own strategic reasons in the in the region in the larger region. One should understand that post 1990s US had a very strong presence in the region militarily presence military presence sorry but that has basically gone down in recent period primarily because of the aggressive foreign policy stances taken by Putin in that what we call the old Soviet Union constituents in the region. So there is a US angle and particularly due to the war in the Eastern Europe the Russian operations in Ukraine there is an attempt by the European powers to kind of kind of do some kind of intervention in Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict to open some kind of a second front which could lead to a kind of deterioration of Russia's position in the region. So Armenia in the last few months has raised the issue of Russia not addressing its concern vis-a-vis Azerbaijan and therefore it has led to growing expression of concerns, growing disagreements on CSTO and other regional groupings. And so for particularly when the CS collective security treaty organizations operation became an issue that basically was a hint that the conflict may re-emerge and will drag Russia and other regional and global players into the region. Right, Abdul. So it's becoming a place to actually keep track of in the. Exactly. Thanks a lot for joining us. A spate of protests has rocked the UK government for well over a year. Rishi Sunak, the prime minister is now trying to push changes in the public order bill. Striking workers see these changes as a clear attempt to curtail their justified demands and their rights. The changes will empower the police to intervene even more strongly against protesters, but the unions say the strikes erupt for a reason and that the government must solve their problems. We have Prashant from People's Dispatch to discuss the issue. So Prashant, hundreds of protests actually going on for the last one year or longer in the UK. Can you talk about why people are protesting, who they are? Right, Pragya. So what we're seeing right now is it's quite unique, I would say, because you have sectors across the United Kingdom, very essential sectors actually protesting and protesting very vociferously about what they are calling very clearly as insufficient pay hikes. Now, the past one month we've seen nurses, we've seen doctors, we've seen ambulance drivers, rail workers, teachers now have balloted to go on strike. We've had male workers, just a cross section of the number of various groups of people who are protesting, you know, talking about their hikes. And this is at a very important time in the UK's history because we know that inflation has been quite high. It had reached up to, I believe, 11% or so before coming down a bit in December. The latest numbers say that the December numbers I believe are, I think, about 10.5%. And in this context, the pay rise that the government has offered is what has really annoyed and angered all the workers because in most of these cases, for instance, let's look at the nurses or NHS staff in general, there's been an average of about 4.75 to 5% pay hike that has been offered. So when you have 10% inflation but say about a 5% pay hike, that basically means that your real pay, the value of your pay is actually coming down. So whatever pay hike you're getting is vanishing because of the inflation that the people are suffering. And in this context, you know, if you look at some of the numbers, it's quite disastrous. For instance, I think the UK Trade Union Congress has pointed out that the average real pay is actually less than what it was in 2008. That's 14 years ago, 15 years ago now. So the average pay is less than that. And household disposable incomes have fallen by 3.3% in 2022. And that's the biggest annual decline in 100 years. So these are important numbers. Again, 100 years is the biggest annual decline. And these situations are set to worsen even further to the extent that it's worse than the 50s when first numbers started to be collected. So that's really where we are at right now. 15 million people are struggling to afford basic costs, for instance. And the midst of all this, what we do see is that the government is proposing pay hikes which have nowhere close to inflation. So which is what is really angered the workers so much. So for instance, right now that is on Wednesday and Thursday nurses were protesting. We do know that on February 1st on the other sections on February 6th, the nurses and the ambulance drivers are both going to go off strike, which will really hit the health care system. And in all these places, I think the demand is exactly the same. They're like, it'll give us a pay hike which matches inflation plus a bit extra, so that we at least maintain our living standards. And whereas the government, the government and various the employers, for instance, they're completely refused to consider this option at all. There are negotiations taking place, but all these negotiations are kind of falling short because this. So there are, of course, there's a lot of complexity about the negotiations, the numbers, various other aspects. And even in cases where the payoff hike is much more than, slightly more than, even they're not close enough to inflation. But there are other conditions imposed which talk about job losses, which talk about the workers having to spend more time in work, which actually means that their working conditions worsen. So these are some of the reasons that the trade unions are considered, you know, going on strike. Right. The parliament is also going over the changes to a law which has, you know, which the government has tried to say is actually in synchrony, international norms. What is this all about? So what the government is trying to do is basically impose conditions whereby workers going on strike in certain sectors will still have to maintain a particular amount of staffing. So this is basically, it is very clearly an anti-strike law. Right. So the government is trying to dress it up by saying that, you know, oh, this is about maintaining essential services, this is about the larger good of the people. But let's call it what it is. It is basically a lot of hinder workers' right to strike. And this is part of the conservative government's larger tendency which has been to try to restrict strikes and protests by workers as much as possible. And it's a very interesting thing because I think one of the leaders of the nursing strike said that, you know, with 40,000 vacancies in the nursing sector, even on an average day, you cannot have the minimum staffing that the government is calling for. Right. So this law, the government says there should be minimum staffing. So that the union leader is saying that even on a day when there is no strike, we are not able to offer this minimum staffing because of the fact that there are so many vacancies. And why are there so many vacancies? There are so many vacancies because staying in the service is not profitable. It's not forget profitable. It does not, you know, you cannot meet your needs. You cannot have a livelihood with these kind of salaries. So people are living in large numbers. And also this is a very important thing to note which is that wage growth in the private sector reached 7.2 percent, that is in the three months leading to November before adjusting for inflation. Whereas in the public sector, it's 3.3 percent. So it's also that employees see that in the private sector, they are getting slightly better, still not enough, but slightly better. So we have cases for instance of, you know, a lot of people depending on food banks, say employees of various government services, depending on food banks. And there was this very insensitive conservative MP who said that the nurses are having to go to food banks because they're barred budgeting. Right. So these kinds of insensitive comments further angering the workers. So this law that the government is promoting, it's backfired because, you know, the government has said that this is, you know, this is on lines with what the ILO says, this is on lines with what the U.S. says. And both the ILO and apparently the U.S. Labor Secretary, if I'm not mistaken, both said that we don't really agree with this. And there was a bit of irony there because you have two strike-breaking governments, the U.S. and the U.K. trading charges saying, no, no, you are, you know, you are also treating employees in VR, which is highly ironic. But nonetheless, the fact remains that this law, which again workers have protested against in large numbers, all the unions came together to protest against it a couple of days ago, I believe, is something that is sort of designed to prevent strikes. And the important thing is that this is what the government is doing is part of their larger framework, which is again more austerity policies. They say they don't have money, but there is no taxation of the super-rich, which for instance, the Oxfam report pointed out that in so many countries across the world, if you're able to tax the super-rich, you will be able to plug these holes in health services, in education services, in transport services, you'll be able to actually pay people. And if you're able to pay people, the whole global, the national standard of living improves because people are able to spend, then, you know, it makes sense for businesses to produce. So this whole cycle is stuck because of these austerity policies, which the government follows, which says, you know, don't tax the rich, reduce spending, and then let everyone figure it out for themselves because that's what works apparently. Red Pishan, thanks for joining us. After injuries to his rib, abdomen and foot, Rafael Nadal has hurt his hip and pulled out of the Australian Open after two games. He's likely to need rest for several weeks, admitting he felt mentally destroyed by the loss and the injury while promising he will keep fighting. Nadal ended the 2022 season on a disappointing note as well. Sadanth, Ani joins us with more on what's happening. Sadanth, good to have you on the show again. Sadanth, so Nadal, another new injury after many in the past, what gives over here? I think it's age, Pragya. I don't know what more to say about it because so for example, my parents who are almost 80 now, they happen to be in Sydney at the moment and potentially for my mother, who's a huge Rafael Nadal fan, all she wanted to do was to see him play one last Australian Open. Now, while there is a certain amount of joy associated with a certain kind of player or someone that you enjoy watching on a sporting field, participating in an event, unfortunately, time for these people runs out. We, you know, a couple of months ago or not, not even a couple of months ago, a couple of weeks ago, we had the culmination of a World Cup that ended most brilliantly for Lionel Messi and his legacy in terms of the sport of football and what major event sort of brings to it. In the case of Rafael Nadal, unfortunately, as much as he's popular in the whole world and as much as he's kind of put his name in the game for this whole good debate that happens particularly in the case of individual sport, right, like a one person sport like tennis, which is all about the Federer's, Nadal's, the Djoko, which is these days, and of course, Serena Williams and others in the women's game. But I think time is now done for most of these guys. You see in build up tournaments how difficult it is for them to come up to the same level as younger players and even be able to compete. So maybe, I don't know, maybe it's time to say enough is enough. Okay, Siddhan, but he doesn't seem to be in a mood to do that. There are other players who have sort of given interviews and said we played a last game and come join us and play and done that with him. And so he has this example in front of him, but there's a sort of like striving to continue on. Yeah, and he's a bit younger, younger than Roger Federer for sure, by a few years. And also, perhaps someone who has prided himself on this extra physicality, where the entire game was based not just on, of course, the inherent talent that he has, but also the amount of effort he put into it, the amount of physicality actually, like in terms of training and being able to overcome the physical issues that come with like grappling this sport on a day-to-day basis. So in that sense, it's always hard to say no. It's always hard to say, like, it's my time is up. And when someone is paying you millions of dollars to sort of stick around and carry on doing it, it makes it that much harder even. By and large, these large competitions, the Grand Slam competitions, the US opens, the French opens, the Australian opens and all of that, where these players have become kind of the draws that bring in all the crowds, that bring in all the money, that bring in the sponsorship revenue, they are starting to say, okay, now is the time to think about the sport once again, to step back a little bit and see where the system is and how we are building up a talent pool that will allow us once again to bring in the kind of eyeballs that require the sport to sustain itself. And I think it's a, again, it's been happening for two or three years, but now is the time when really men's tennis in particular has to take stock and say the Nadal Djokovic Federer is over. Now we have to say, like, do we have a sport in which people all over the world are participating, enjoying and sharing a lot more than is just limited to these personalities and can we build on that? If yes, then there's a future. If not, then we have to move on to other things. Right, Sudhanta. Thanks for joining us. And that's all we have for today. Thank you for watching Daily Debrief. Do come back to us tomorrow. You can find our stories on peoplesdispatch.org and our social media updates on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.