 Thirty years since the world watched Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat shake hands on a framework for peace talks, why does the dream of a two-state solution seem further away than ever before? In Europe, nurses and doctors are planning new industrial action and we have new data to understand what nurses are actually paid across the region. What is the impact of governments taking short-sighted approaches to solving deep-rooted problems in health systems? And in South Korea, rail workers are on a four-day strike following a breakdown in negotiations, the first such strike since 2019. Why is management and the government failing to respond? This is of course a daily debrief and if you like the kind of coverage we do of the news beyond the headlines, don't forget of course to like and subscribe as well as share this video with your friends. We are coming to you as always from the People's Dispatch studios in New Delhi. I'm Siddharth Ani. On September the 13th, 1993, two adversaries shook hands in the world watched with hope, hope of talks, of a framework and of moves towards a two-state solution in Palestine. Thirty years on that dream seems further away than ever before but the hope of the Palestinian people continues to find new ways to reinvigorate their struggle for a homeland. The Oslo Accords, which was a framework for talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians, mediated of course by American diplomats, have turned 30. On daily debrief, we've consistently reported on the conditions in which Palestinians continue to live and work and fight and struggle of course in the occupied territories. And today we have the opportunity to talk to Dr. Abdul Rahman about some of the historical details as well as the future of the resistance. Let's go over to him now. Abdul 30 years on it might be a bit difficult to recap that entire history but give us your take on where the Oslo framework, the Oslo Accords framework stands today. How has it been violated and also maybe give us some context into whether the sort of development of this framework was in a way doomed to fail anyway. The Oslo Accord which was signed in 1993-94, 30 years back, one can safely say that it has been never implemented. All its provisions starting from the creation of Palestinian Authority, the demarcation of three different reasons within the occupied West Bank, the number of settlements, all of these have been consistently violated. Palestinian Authority has been deprived of all basic rights which is necessary to basically govern whatever limited governance it was assumed to have. When it comes to the number of settlements, everyone knows that successive governments of Israel have never followed the control, they haven't even tried to control the expansion of settlements and today around 700,000 illegal settlers live all across occupied West Bank in occupied East Jerusalem. When it comes to final status negotiations, it has been 30 years, none of the issues have even been initiated. We know that Israel has basically tried to assert its sovereignty over East Jerusalem and in fact one of the guarantors of the Oslo Agreement, the United States during Trump administration recognized, in fact shifted its embassy to Jerusalem. Israel has built hundreds of kilometers of wall separating the Palestinians and the rest of the territories in occupied West Bank which basically violates the basic right of movement, right to work, right to health of all the Palestinians. The number of Palestinians being killed in the aggression not only carried by the Israeli armed forces, but also by the illegal settlers living within the occupied territories has increased and in increasing every day. There has been no attempt to address the issues related to the Palestinian refugees. In fact, if you see the Israel's because of the policies of settlement expansion and because of the policies of forceful displacement, the number of Palestinian refugees who were basically twice the victims have also increased. The entire occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem has become Bantustan which basically makes it impossible for Palestinian authority to carry out even the basic minimum work and apart from preventing people from carrying out their normal day to day life. So given the extent to which Israel has basically cracked down on the Palestinian people has basically violated their basic rights. One can safely conclude that the Oslo agreements are dead and they have never been in fact observed. So given all of that, Abdul and of course all of the other conversations we've had on the subject of Palestine, across the course of our reportage on daily debrief, the sort of lack of viability of this framework, where does that leave the Palestinian resistance and how do you look at the resistance sort of growing or where do you look at it going in the future? When it comes to alternatives in front of the Palestinian resistance groups, we all know that a large number of the Palestinian groups including Hamas and Islamic Jihad had never accepted the legitimacy of the Oslo agreement and they had basically for a very long time believed in the armed resistance and they also indulged in it for a very long time. Though in recent years they have also realized that this may not lead to the desired results. And so by and large there is a consensus now at least among the Palestinian groups, main Palestinian resistance group about finding a political solution to the Palestinian issue and therefore they believed that some kind of internationally negotiated mediated peace process is the only viable option. However, there is a group of Palestinian youth which basically is completely disillusioned with all these traditional resistance groups and they have basically tried to look for an alternative. Some of them have adopted violent methods also. If you see in last few months there have been many several attacks on the Israeli occupation forces inside Israel and so on and so forth, which reminds us of what happened during the first intifada or the second, at least second intifada. So that is one option also. Of course, there is a third option and which has caught the imagination of a large number of movements across the globe at this moment is the BDS movement, which by caught the investment sanction movement, which basically has been able to convince at least not the governments, but at least some of the movements in the first world countries in Europe, US, elsewhere, where they have been basically convinced that it is necessary that the world adopts similar methods as they adopted during the apartheid regime in South Africa to pressurize Israel to basically come and sit on a table to negotiate the solution for the Palestinian issue. So that is another option. Within that there is a small group which also believes that two-state solution is no more viable and therefore we should work for a one-state solution in which the Palestinians can live within Israel as equal citizens, though even there is a strong disagreement among the majority of the Palestinian groups over the viability of this one-state solution. But nonetheless that is one of the options which the Palestinian resistance groups have started exploring. So in the absence of any possibility that Oslo agreements will be implemented, the only options remain is that the world rethinks and particularly given the larger changes in the geopolitics at the global level, rethinks about finding solution to Palestinian issue and basically to kind of work harder for achieving starting some kind of peace process. So that is the only option which looks viable at this moment. That is all we have time for today, Abdul. So we will leave it there. Thanks very much for the update. New data has revealed the massive gaps in pay received by nurses working in various nations across the European region. This data comes at a time when health professionals including but of course not limited to doctors and nurses have been forced to take industrial action in the United Kingdom as well as in mainland Europe. They are demanding better wages of course but also better work conditions and higher staffing levels. It also comes at a time when all working people are struggling to deal with the rising costs of staying alive and paying for even a basic basket of goods. To talk about these wages in real terms of course in terms of what they can buy and what they cannot and about how governments in Europe are looking to solve the issues and Avrachar of the People's Health Movement joins us from Zagare. Good to have you on Daily Debrief as always. I haven't seen you in a while. I also hope you're well. First up I wanted to talk to you about the latest round of action by UK nurses coming as it does on the wake of this release or this understanding that we now have of relative pay scales of nurses across Europe. Yeah, so essentially if we focus on the UK for now, we can say that it's already been almost a year since health workers there have started doing different kinds of campaigns including extensive industrial action over the level of their salaries. So this week there have been scattered strikes among different health workers in different hospitals of England. And then later this month and later in October we're also looking at something that apparently has never happened before and that's a joint strike by junior doctors and resident doctors. So the health workers instead of stepping back from the action that they began because they were warning the government from the very beginning that the salary levels were not enough to keep up with the cost of living crisis with the inflation that the UK people have been struggling so much with. They're actually stepping up and keeping tight on what they have started. But yes, as you mentioned, this is not something that's specific to England. It's the level of salaries and essentially the extent to which the salaries that health workers receive are enough to secure a living is a problem that's widespread all over Europe. And just recently we've seen updated data about the amount, so both the comprehensive amounts of salaries which are received by nurses in different countries of Europe, but also of those salaries adjusted for purchasing power parity. It becomes critical actually. Yeah, in this situation it's actually something that's missing from the conversation because as we've heard from the various governments, everybody's saying, oh, but the health workers who are now on strike have actually got a pay raise in the last two or three or four years. But if you look at the numbers adjusted for some, including the UK, it's actually a pre-cut. So this new data shows that what the nurses in the UK have experienced is essentially a 6% cut to what they had before. And of course in the context that Europe is living right now, which includes a very high increase in prices for utilities for food and for other basic necessities, adjusting the salaries to actually be able to confront those rising costs is essential. So what we're seeing in the UK but also in other countries is that the governments are trying to kind of hide away and hide away from what's essentially being experienced by the people. Right. We see also in this data, Ana, which you shared with us, quite a massive sort of range of salaries that nurses receive across Europe where, okay, there are of course differences in the region in terms of costs of living and essential commodities. But broadly speaking, there is some sort of common set of denominators that kind of determine the price of your basket of essential goods, I guess, and like 10 times in some cases these salaries kind of vary. How do you kind of factor that in our nurses and other professionals anywhere in Europe, getting paid enough basically speaking to earn a decent living? Okay, so that's actually a good question. I wouldn't rule it out. There is some places but very few places. The nurses are getting paid enough to make a living. But those are very rare places and it's uncommon to see that, for example, Luxembourg would be one of those places. But if you look at the overall salary that they're getting in Luxembourg, it's over 100,000 euros per year. So that's exceptionally high and of course everything in Luxembourg is exceptionally disproportionate to the rest of Europe. So I wouldn't take it as a rule. In most places, what we're seeing is that the salary that you get is not really enough to take you to the end of the month. And this is something that's been reported from the ground from nurses from all over the place. So starting with Portugal where nurses have also been on strike for the last repeatedly over the past couple of months because of these kind of disparities and because of some of the promises to essentially recognize their experience and their contribution to the health system were not taken, were not put into practice. And then of course, you know, there's a whole other set of people in East Europe, which if you look at the data, of course, it's at the bottom of that list. And I think not even all of the countries were included in the data set but were included in the data set. But essentially, although the prices might be lower when you compare them to Central Europe and so on and so on. The pay that you receive in, for example, Bulgaria, Romania, Lithuania in the Baltic States, you know, even in Croatia and in the countries which would be presented like better off in this kind of, in this part of Europe. The prices are still too high to essentially, you know, live off that salary that you're getting. So it's particularly a problem for people who are living alone. If you have single parents who have to take care of the child, there are more costs involved. So essentially the overall picture is that the nurse's salaries are overall too low. They should be increased and it's something that should be really put on the table as the governments discuss how to deal with the struggling health systems that they have in front of them. Yeah, absolutely. And also so many different questions, I guess, come up because of this, because so many participants in this part of the labor market are migrants themselves. We've talked before about how skewed it is on gender terms and how women face a disproportionate impact of the low levels of wages, etc. Particularly when it comes to like single parents or single income households. I want to talk a bit about because so many of these governments as well as private hospitals and other institutions in Europe are now looking to kind of buy up labor from the Global South to make up for their shortfall. Are they deliberately sort of skating from dealing with the issue and looking at actual long term solutions like you were pointing out towards beleaguered health systems that they are facing? And instead just filling short term gaps by bringing in more migrant workers who are perhaps willing to work for a lower wage? Well, yeah, I would say the second point would be closer to what's happening. And again, we've been for the last couple of issues of the people's health dispatch, we have been reporting and looking at how Germany is dealing with its severe shortage of health workers. And just to point out it's not the German problem. It's an overall problem. Health workers are missing everywhere. But what the German government has been doing for the last months and essentially years, but in the last couple of months we've heard reports that for example the German Labour Minister meets with their counterpart in Brazil in Kerala in other places which they see as source places where they can recruit nurses. And now behind this is that they come and say, well, if you look at the numbers, you have very high numbers of nursing graduates coming from nursing schools in some states of India, in some parts of Brazil. So it's fair for us to come and offer them, you know, better conditions. They can migrate freely and that's, you know, it's called the triple win. I think it's a bit of a problematic term because it essentially leaves out this whole problem that when you look at the health systems and particularly at the public health systems, they're missing the health workers themselves. India and Brazil, they're not so well staffed that they can allow themselves to export such high numbers of nurses. It's just that the jobs are not there. The jobs are not there because the money is not there. And essentially what the high income countries governments are doing, they're choosing to ignore all that because, you know, it's a bargain for them. You can get nurses training in the global south for a fraction of the price that you would need to invest in Germany or in France or in the UK. So it's very cheap if you look at it. And once they do migrate, it's also very cheaper labor force than you would get locally. It's a way of exploiting people. It's a way of also exploiting the education systems and the health systems of sourced countries, which are investing their own money in training these nurses and doctors and pharmacists and other health workers. And essentially just, you know, trying to find an easy way to a very difficult question. Absolutely. And we were out of time, of course, lots more to discuss on this subject, but through people's health dispatches, of course, your perspectives will are vital, particularly in these parts of the world. I guess what you look at it as maybe source countries and where these debates are not really happening of, you know, what the real costs are and the implications of kind of shipping yourself out to another part to work in the longer run. And definitely for governments to look at in terms of how they hope to shape health structures for sure. Thanks very much for joining us. And finally, unionized workers of the government run Korean Railroad Corporation, also known as Corail for short, are on a four day strike. This is the first such industrial action since 2019. And the demands of the government restructure work allocation, also deal with understaffing issues, expand the rail network itself and change the way in which it looks at railroads in general. Anish covers the region for people's dispatch. Let's go over to him now. Anish, welcome back to Daily DB for your favorite spot, of course, the best bit of work you do all day. What is happening in Korea and is there sort of a deadlock in negotiations already between the union and management? The deadlock has been there for a while now. We have seen a lot of statements being made by the KRWU in the past in many, in the since at least now, December last year, and the same kind of intentions continue at this point. And we see at this, at this current juncture, the government trying to use SR Corporation as a pathway to privatizing railways. Now, one of the bit of context that we need to give our audience is basically that SR Corporation is basically one of those apart from Corail runs the, you know, this super fast trains, the super fast train category called as SR trains, SRDs and that basically is owned by a couple of government run corporations, but different with different shareholdings. And so it's more or less quite easier for them to unbundle that at some level and maybe, you know, publicly traded, bring in private players, and this has been accused, alleged by unions for quite a while now, because and they are now demanding a merger of that with Corail, which is a government run subsidiary, and that pretty much runs most of Corail railways at this point. But nevertheless, that aside, you also have other issues being raised, primarily surrounding working hours in among, you know, rail operators, they're calling for a 12 hour rotational shift divided among 14. There and then obviously, wage adjustments, based on, you know, the escalating cost of living crisis, something that we see very often among trade union movements, strikes and, you know, mobilizations over the past few years. Now, since we have done this through actually, you have talked about the cost of living crisis and Korea is no different in that sense, and has been affected very badly with which is stagnating almost at some level. And so, these are some of the primary demands and we actually see a sort of the political line that the government is using, because basically they do want to, they did break down the merger plans for Corail and SR Corporation earlier this year. And it is pretty much that that has angered much of the workers, because they do believe that it would be much more easier and cost effective and also it will be better for the workers as well because it will bring out a significant amount of revenue and they can expand the bullet train network in the country right now. Anish, over the past year or so, we have seen several sort of major incidents involving commuter trains here in India, in Europe as well. A lot of them or investigations into them also consider staffing, particularly of those manning critical parts of the real networks as a serious issue and this seems to be across the globe. So, in the context of South Korea, what is the government's take on it and sort of why is there continuing willingness to understaff what is critical service and that actually impacts lives. Staffing has been primary issue in this and that is also reflected in the 12 hour, 14 workshops that we are calling for and also the calls for merger because this will streamline the entire network, the existing network bring in a better level of staffing. It can actually address staffing shortages at this point and also consolidate revenue and profits as well of the two corporations and that can actually help the railways to expand but that is necessarily not what the government wants at the moment. I must remember that this union, the TRWU is pretty much dominated by the FKPU which is basically the Federation of Foreign Trade Unions, a trade union that was established during the military regime era and military dictatorship era and it was supposed to be this very pro employer, company union kind of trade union and it is part of this, like the TRWU is basically primarily dominated and even the leadership is dominated by the FKPU and despite that a trade union that is considered very pro-conservative are making demands that are going against government's policies at this current point of time clearly shows that there is a clear divide between the workers and the government at this point which is not entirely irreparable, it is just something that requires a lot of good faith work and also the willingness of the government to actually expand and invest in the railways, a very critical infrastructure and that is something that we do not see forthcoming in the government right now. Alright Anish, thanks very much for that update, we leave it there for today.