 Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Your weekly movement news roundup. You're with Give the People What They Want brought to you by People's Dispatch and Globe Trotter. This is show number 148. Now, I know what you're saying. You missed a couple of shows and so on. So this really should be show 150. But we don't count like that. We only count the shows we've done. This is 148. Next week is 149. And then if you're lucky, we'll have some fancy show for our 150th. Today you're with Zoe from People's Dispatch and Mika is back with us. Our special guest. Tough, tough week again in Gaza. The ordinance numbers are now out. 25,000 tons of explosive dropped on Gaza. For comparison, Hiroshima 15,000 tons where approaching twice the Hiroshima levels of ordinance dropped on Gaza. According to the Gaza Health Ministry where either near 10,000 dead or over 10,000 dead. Very difficult for them to keep track of what's happening. Israeli tanks surrounding Gaza City. There are deaths taking place at places like Jabalia. There are deaths taking place inside Gaza City. Just don't have any idea how many people have died because people are not able in some cases to access hospitals. So the death toll is not really accurate any longer. Israeli tanks as I said inside the province of Gaza at Saladin Street which cuts Gaza north and south. A significant event and long awaited was the speech today by Syed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah. Now as is common, those who know understand that big screens were placed across Lebanon in Beirut in the southern part of Beirut in the southern cities and so on. Large scale production for his speech. Nasrallah spoke for about over an hour. Nasrallah has the characteristic of an academic. He goes slow. He explains what's happening. This is what he said. He said, number one, that Hezbollah stands unequivocally with the people of Palestine with Gaza, of course, but all Palestine. Secondly, Mr. Nasrallah said that already Hezbollah has been in various forms of conflict with the Israeli soldiers at the northern frontier of Israel. In fact, those have indeed been quite controversial because Amnesty International has already released a report saying that in its fight with Hezbollah, the Israeli military has used illegal white phosphorus. Mr. Nasrallah said that the fighters of Hezbollah maybe up to 100,000 of them are massed. They are ready. There are people quite brave to remain at the border and fire. Now, what he said was continuing this low level warfare with Israel has allowed Hezbollah to pin down Israeli troops and prevent them from being diverted to Gaza. You might ask, why didn't Sayed Hassan Nasrallah declare war against Israel? The reason he didn't, he said is it's not the time yet. We're going slowly. We are methodical. He said if the Americans think, and he called this war on Gaza an American war, he said if the Americans think that they're going to have the upper hand here, they're not. And he warned, he said that we will take out your battleships in the eastern Mediterranean. You were defeated in Afghanistan, defeated in Iraq. You were defeated three times in Lebanon. You will be defeated again. It was a very powerful speech, but it wasn't exactly a declaration of war. It was something just about short of that. He did say the United States is deeply isolated, Zoe, deeply isolated, not just in this conflict, but also yesterday at the UN General Assembly, deeply isolated a vote on Cuba. Tell us about that. Well, this is, I think, a moment that people have been watching yearly for the past 30 years that this vote has taken place. It's the resolution which Cuba proposes to condemn the unilateral blockade of Cuba imposed by the United States. This is a vote that, again, for 30 years has been passed with an absolute majority, with very, very few exceptions, abstaining or voting against. And this year was even more overwhelming than last year. Only two countries voted against. This was U.S. and Israel, and they, of course, historically have always voted against this resolution. Again, we know that the UN General Assembly resolutions are not binding. However, they do represent a very important indication of both where the world stands and also for these countries to kind of take their own stand and say, no, we're still not going to support this resolution. And in the speeches that were given by different diplomats about the resolution and why they were supporting it or why they were against it, we saw many people talking about the humanitarian toll that this blockade has had on the Cuban people. We've covered this a lot on the show that not only are the people of Cuba facing this suffocating 60-year-plus blockade, which was imposed just a few years after they stood up to U.S. imperialism and established a revolution of a socialist character. But during the Trump administration, Cuba was put on the state-sponsored terrorism list, which is essentially taking the blockade and amplifying it to an extreme degree. Again, we have covered what is the impact of both the blockade and the designation of the state-sponsored terrorism list. Many commentators pointed out that this vote and this discussion about how the U.S. can pursue this extremely unilateral, not based in fact, both designation of the SSOT but also the blockade of Cuba. While there are funding and bankrolling, currently the most rogue state in the world, Israel, which receives billions of dollars in U.S. aid every single year and is currently carrying out this genocidal massacre of the Palestinian people. On the other hand, you have Cuba who sends doctors to dozens of countries, which trains Palestinian doctors, which trains doctors who are currently in the Gaza Strip saving lives. And yet, not only are they strangle-holded by the United States, not only are they unable to import crucial products for their production, for their health sector, for their science sector, but also their stigmatized international banks do not want to do business with Cuba. So it's one of these great contradictions where you see once again the people of the world, the majority of the world represented in the United Nations is saying no to this blockade of Cuba, no to these unilateral sanctions, and yes to Cuban doctors, yes to Cuban medicine, yes to Cuban science. And of course the U.S., Israel, you know, voting against this and Ukraine, another huge recipient of U.S. aid also abstaining. So I think again, as these these votes which happen every year are often watched as kind of an indication of where world leaders are standing on the Cuba issue, the U.S. is never going to of course vote against itself in its own policy, but more and more, I think, and as you said, Vijay, with the U.S.'s position on Israel, it really is becoming more and more isolated. People are saying not only are we against this policy because of how it impacts the Cuban people, but if the U.S. is capable of doing this to Cuba, then what is it going to do to us? And I think also when we saw the anti-colonial coups happening across West Africa and the response of the West, people recognized that the West is very, very quick, very, very quick to not only abandon its propped up leaders, but also people who are going to have real material impacts of these sanctions, of these blockades, and they're going to be left out in the dust. So people are more and more recognizing this and saying standing with the U.S. may have short term benefits in the long term, they're not going to take care of your interests. So once again, there's UNGA vote, a testament to the thermometer of where the people of the world stand with Cuba and where do they stand with the U.S.'s policies. So here's the interesting thing, United States are continuing to do heavy sanctions on Cuba. It's in fact a blockade. It's not even an embargo. It's a heavy sanction, but their sanction habit doesn't seem to end. In the African continent, they have the African Growth and Opportunity Act. Now, Biden in the middle of all this has said it's not only one country, but several countries are going to be thrown out of the AGOA, this act which gives preferential trade, right Mika? Yeah, that's right. So essentially with AGOA, it would allow for, you know, duty-free products. I think it's around 2,000 duty-free products to enter the U.S., which of course gives certain benefits to the producing country. But of course in Biden's words, it was due to, in his words, gross violations of human rights, which in this moment is abhorrent for him to say that. And so Niger is one of, I think, eight African countries who are on the U.S. sanctions list. They are individual African leaders who are also on the sanctions list, but most of them find themselves on this list not necessarily because of the so-called Gross Human Violations Act, but they are choosing paths that are against the U.S.'s political and economic interests. And of course since the coup in July in Niger, most Western aid, most Western trade has slowed down. Aid has been cut off. But of course they kind of are retrospectively kind of trying to reposition themselves as being the ones who are we are pulling out when in fact we know the people of Niger spoke loud and clear and calling for the French to leave, which most of the French, the French ambassador left in September, many of the troops have already left. But interestingly, even though they are trying to break economic ties or to shrink their economic opportunities because right now Niger is also faced with ECOA sanctions, sanctions from countries in the region that only, as we know, serve to punish the people not necessarily dent the support for the government in many ways. But interestingly, on the 26th of October, I think it was the U.S. Senate voted down a bill that would have required U.S. military troops to withdraw from Niger. And I think this is important to note because right now they have about 1,000 troops and after the coup, they moved out of the capital of Niame to Agadez with a drone base. One of the largest U.S. drone bases is operating in the region. And this is of course one of the reasons is, one, they might pull out economically, but in fact it seems more like a tactic to try to squeeze them out, but they won't withdraw militarily because of course they not only have the interest of trying to keep a presence in the Sahel to monitor the East, of course to monitor what will happen with the significant uranium ore that's in the region as well as other mineral resources, but of course to ensure that they push back and today actually the Niger government announced that a 2,000 kilometer oil pipeline to Benin would be constructed in the region on the East side, which is relatively undeveloped because it's quite a desertified area. And so they spoke about how they were going to resume and ensure that the construction of this 2,000 kilometer pipeline to a very oil-rich area will continue. So of course it's interesting that one, China has a big company that has a large stake in the oil pipeline. So it's interesting we'll see how the U.S. tries to monitor Chinese activities. As we know the military presence is largely to push back against the geopolitical influence that China is gaining and the various development projects that are underway. And I think significantly last point I'll add end with is that during the commissioning ceremony, the energy ministers of Mali and Burkina Faso were present. And I think for the African people this should be an interesting signifier, this increasing closeness and this kind of regional coordination that we're seeing in the region because of course we know that the continent of Africa highly underdeveloped due to the legacies of colonialism and neocolonialism would require developing our economies to regional economies of scale if we're going to see significant changes and opportunities to move away from the dependency we had largely on the west but now we're seeing different opportunities rising in this interesting geopolitical moment we inhabit. We got sanctions on the one side, we got opportunities on the other. You're with give the people what they want brought to you by people's dispatch and globetrotter great to be with you 148th show. Somehow Zoe this entire show is about sanctions because here we go again here in Guatemala there's a new president wins a landslide victory there is a attempt to undermine his presidency etc etc etc please tell us what that etc etc is in that country of Guatemala well perhaps Guatemala is slightly the exception because this time it's not the United States trying to sanction Bernardo Arrivalo and his semi movement party but it is actually this legal battle between the courts and Arrivalo himself has actually received support from US officials saying that the attacks on him and his party are undermining democracy so it's an interesting situation we've been covering it again since the midterm elect since sorry the first round of elections in Guatemala even before that because as we've said the entire electoral process had been has been marred by irregularities has been marred by a prescription by parties being banned by candidates being banned by a lot of irregular moves to essentially stop any popular candidates who are going to challenge the status quo who are going to challenge the system of corruption to his challenge the way elites have really been going about politics in the country you know for the past period and Bernardo Arrivalo coming in first place in this first round of elections in the country was a huge shock was a shock to the elites and they quickly began to maneuver using largely the supreme electoral court other courts posing against each other and there has been sort of this continuous development where the Attorney General will do one thing and will say okay now the party's banned another court will fight back and the latest update is actually quite significant because it is the electoral authorities who have now moved to suspend Bernardo Arrivalo's party they had previously actually been the last line of defense in some cases of democracy in Guatemala while you saw the Attorney General investigating his party attempting to ban them the electoral court was also getting raided by Guatemala and authorities and now just this morning the electoral authorities have said that they're going to ban this party what does this mean Bernardo Arrivalo is the president-elect in the country of the Simea party the movement party he is set to be sworn in again in January the back and forth has been tense and this move is definitely going to shake things it's again as it happened in these past hours it is unclear how is this going to shake out are they going to how does this affect the votes I think there is going to be a continued legal battle and it really points to this this crisis of liberal democracy of where the elites were able to sway the vote for so many years and the people have just had enough and so not only on the side of these fights between the different courts the different orders the different developments there there has been a sustained protest by indigenous movements by people's movements in the country since October 2nd there has been a national strike that was called for by indigenous movements they marched all the way to the capital and had been holding a sit-in outside the presidential palace Bernardo Arrivalo himself greeted this movement presented a letter to the president Alejandro Giotame he has not he has essentially given a carte blanche to continue this persecution despite the mandate of a president to ensure a peaceful transition of power so it's definitely a concerning development attacks the democracy undermining democracy however I think the key thing to note here is that even if the institutions can be swayed again the supreme electoral court had been defending the party then was raided it is the people who are going to continue to defend the mandate to defend their votes on the streets I think this latest move of the court banning the party is going to generate a significant backlash on the streets people have had enough they showed that not only with their vote with their votes in the first round and second round but now they've said this is more than one candidate this is about defending the democracy again has only been around for a few decades Guatemala was under a seriously bloody dictatorship for several decades a very very tragic and traumatic civil war which are wounds that are still being dealt with and so this latest chapter is just another part of that but they continue to defend this fragile democracy that they have so fragile democracy came out of a really terrible terrible period remember well the massacres in that country in the 1980s brutal period is a good reason why you're here with us because we're associated with the website people's dispatch terrific stuff there to read go and look at it in fact on the website there's a story by Stanley Qabla Arcu on the Akosombo Dam village in Ghana he's from Pan Africa TV Mika this is a real tragedy tens of thousands of people impacted by this dam spillage this is the one story we're doing today not about sanctions tell us a little bit about what has been happening in Ghana well so a couple of weeks ago we saw that due to heavy rainfall largely due to climate related changes that the Akosombo Dam was one of the biggest dam projects A in the 1960s was the biggest dam project constructed under Nkrumah it was a huge development project that was not only going to electrify, feed and help to increase the economic productivity of the country but was also going to help to be a productive force in the region and so we've seen right now initially it was 8,000 people who were displaced from eight communities around 1000 this is from the great reporting of the colleague at people's dispatch but the bigger picture I think is worth speaking about is the question of climate change and its disproportionate effect on the African continent and on the global south we saw this in Pakistan which you know has less than correct me if I'm wrong less than a percent contributing to carbon emissions and right now Africa is estimated in 20 I think it was in July 2023 that the loss due to climate change would be projected between 290 billion to 400 billion annually and that's huge amounts of money when we're struggling with 100 billion infrastructural deficit each year and that's only looking to increase as we experience more and more of these climate related catastrophes and importantly I want to raise two things is that one a recent report by the IMF of course concludes that it's these fragile states that suffer from all these floods droughts etc so it names Central African Republic Somalia Sudan and mostly talks about how their inability to be governable people is why they're unable to deal with the situation but of course what they don't talk about when they keep talking about fragile states is that capitalism has contributed to this we know that it's 100 of the world's largest companies are responsible for like 70 percent of carbon emissions right now as the U.S. continues to hold fast to pushing for war, pushing to increase their military budget that's money that could be going to climate mitigation as we know there is a fund that is not getting any commitment from the western historical pollutants in the western countries and in this particular moment when we're seeing how our taxes the U.S. tax dollars of our colleague are going to financing the killing of civilians in Palestine it's extremely worrisome to see that the rest of the world especially the European Union has taken so long to just call for a ceasefire or accept reluctantly accept the resolution for a ceasefire and I just want to mention that a colleague of ours Gisela Cernandes along with recently published an important study on monthly review where they reveal the true spending the actual spending using U.S. defense budgets and different hidden budgets that aren't always taken into account by SIPRI the Stockholm Institute for peace research international peace research where the actual U.S. military budget they calculate is more than double what SIPRI estimates that SIPRI would have estimated the 2022 budget around just over like close to 900 billion and it's actually 1.5 trillion U.S. dollars and so I think this is an important intervention in this moment that hopefully gets people galvanized around the reason why we have to have peace because the world is on is flooding is on fire and we have real no real option if we don't push our own spending into the right places such as social services in the middle of all this the United States government has got a new supplemental military budget over a hundred billion dollars in that budget 61.4 billion to Ukraine 14.1 billion to Israel in the middle of these two ongoing conflicts now interesting 61.4 billion to Ukraine earlier Zoe said it was Ukraine and Israel that didn't vote to end the blockade on Cuba no surprises there I said most of our show is on sanctions well after having passed a budget that sends 61.4 billion extra dollars to the Ukrainians to continue this war against Russia United States decided to sanction some more some more individuals and companies well this is interesting they decided and found individuals and companies in Turkey China and the United Arab Emirates these three countries where they claim companies and individuals are selling the Russians technology whose end use is dual it could either be civilian or military and dual technologies are prohibited by the US government for sale to Russia right now so they've gone and they've clamped down on these three countries on companies and individuals in these three countries Turkey the UAE and of course China well interestingly the companies which were buying these technologies were mainly in the energy and finance sector and mining sector energy and mining sector there was no direct invoice to a defense contractor look let's not be naive that doesn't mean that some of this technology might not have gone to an arms manufacturer but that's not was written on the invoice it's an interesting thing that's happening in the world you see the more these countries particularly Russia and China getting sanctioned and Iran are getting sanctioned on issues of technology sales they more the more they seem to be doing it because they seem to be creating an entirely different world of technology creation bypassing the Europeans and bypassing the United States so in a way this kind of sanctioning is isolating it's not necessarily empowering this it doesn't strengthen the hand of the United States it just means that these countries in in Eurasia in Europe and Asia are building their own universe of technology trade that's precisely what seems to be happening and it turns out that these three countries Turkey China and the United Arab Emirates have been pretty vocal about their support for the Palestinians in Gaza it's all one very peculiar learning of the world that we're seeing you're listening to give the people what they want come to you from people's dispatch hopefully your favorite website to get movement driven news and from Globetrotter it's show 148 we'll be back next week with 149 and then get ready for 150 and those selfies have to come back see you later