 A UN expert has urged the United States to close down its Guantanamo Bay prison. She has said the country's treatment of prisoners is the biggest barrier to ensuring justice for the victims of the 9-11 attacks. Guatemala's run-off election for a new president on August 20 will be a center-left-versus-center-right contest as left candidate Telma Cabrera and two others were controversially disqualified before the election. China will host four prime ministers from four continents in the coming summer divorce forum starting Tuesday and a coming visit from the governor of a key Japanese province will complete the diplomatic circle. These are our stories today on Daily Debrief. Finwala Ni'aulan, the UN special rapporteur, has said the United States should apologize to inmates of its Guantanamo prison for their systematic torture ongoing for just over two decades. It has just 30 inmates today and 16 are due for release and there has been widespread international opprobrium but the wide range of indignities and rights violations at Guantanamo make the sufferings of inmates profound and unprecedented. Abdul has been tracking the story for People's Dispatch and he joins us now over Zoom. Abdul, thanks for joining us. Abdul, what has the special rapporteur Ni'aulan said in her report? Well, she is the first UN expert to visit the infamous illegal Guantanamo detention center. She was allowed to visit for the first time in the last 21 years of his existence and after visiting the prison she basically prepared a detailed report about the basic treatment of the detainees where 30 detainees still remaining in the prison which has a history of more than 700 detainees coming, going in the last 21 years and she says that the treatment of these detainees by the US authorities is basically inhuman and degrading. She basically mentions that the US prison authorities have used torture and other unlawful methods on these business. They have been basically violated time and again and it is time to basically shut down the prison and it basically demands that US authorities apologize formally to all the detainees and provide compensation to whoever has been there in the prison. It also talks about that there is a need that US basically remove all the names, all the previous detainees name from its so-called terrorist watch list which this is a strange thing that despite the fact that some of the detainees were kept inside the Guantanamo Bay prison illegally for years they were tortured in human practices subjected to inhuman practices despite that US authorities were not able to frame any charges against them and they were released after years of this detention and still US authorities after releasing them keep them on terrorist watches. So she also mentions that these names whoever has been released their name should be removed so that their rehabilitation is possible and that these people live normal. So these are the basic findings of Nee's report and she basically talks about the accountability to be established for whoever has been responsible for this particular kind of illegal detention facility. Abdul there have been other reports that have been many agitations against the kind of conditions in Guantanamo Bay in the detention center. Now what is the special significance of this report and is it also important to note that she has made a link between the lack of justice for the 9-11 victims and the way the prison system has treated these inmates. Well you are right that there have been many other reports from the beginning of the establishment of the Guantanamo Bay prison center. Since 2002 onwards you find very newspaper reports and in particular the most important revolution was made by the publication of the Gitmo files by the WikiLeaks in 2011 which basically details how the US authorities use a premeditated set of illegal abusive methods against the prisoners to basically extract false confessions, false witnesses against each other. So yeah that is correct so this is not nothing new but the one thing which needs to be underlined that US has basically finally agreed that the UN expert for the UN expert visit so that is a new thing that she was the first person to as an UN reporter to visit the detention center and interview some of the detainees there so that is something which has not been reported earlier. So apart from that yes she has made a link that the see if you see terrorism as a illegal act in human act and the victims of the 9-11 basically need justice no doubt about it but that does not mean that innocence and the people who have no there has been no legal evidence against them need to suffer because 9-11 victims have not got justice. Injustice against some other does not mean justice for some so and that is the basic thing on which the legal systems ideally should work US has violated this basic principle time and again while maintaining the Guantanamo Bay and other black sites in different other parts of the world and that basically the thing which needs to be underlined and that is what the report does. We are not sure whether the US authorities will still here listen to what the report says and has been told to them repeatedly they have a record of not listening to such reports in fact even after the publication of this particular report the US authorities basically tried to trivialize it saying that we do not violate any international law and we are trying to treat the prisoners with as per the international law and the laws of the land the US denying the basic fact that the Guantanamo Bay was established to bypass the international law and the law the US law itself so yeah that is that has been the standard practice and we don't know whether the justice will be done or not but yeah. Abdul we just have time for one quick question more you know what about the timing of allowing this visit and then the report coming out this like you said just 30 inmates left now out of several hundred before. Well Biden during his election campaign and after assuming of his had promised that he will shut down the Guantanamo Bay prison here just like Obama did but so far if you see the latest set of reports says that the US administration has gone back to his promise and now they are saying they will shut down eventually earlier they said by 2024 now they say eventually it will be shut down and it will take time so that is one thing which basically indicates the pressure which is there in the US larger river politics to maintain such kind of illegal establishments. Right Abdul thanks a lot for joining us. None of the 22 candidates in Sunday's presidential poll in Guatemala got the required 50% votes people expressed their discontent as many voters stayed away or submitted blank votes. Sandra Torres of the Center right National Unity of Hope and Bernardo Arevalo of the center left Samia movement will contest in a runoff even combined these two candidates could not secure half the votes there's a widespread mode of protest in the country facing numerous simultaneous challenges Zoe Alexandra of People's Dispatch discusses this election. Zoe can you first tell us what happened in the election held on Sunday in Guatemala? Yes well on Sunday June 25th the people of Guatemala went to the polls to elect their next president vice president members of the parliament members of the Central American Parliament as well as mayors and counselors for municipalities across the country and these were historic elections and not in necessarily a positive way. These elections were really characterized by low participation and also a large number of protest votes so in a Guatemala is a small country the number of people who are eligible to vote in these elections was 9.3 million so of these 9.3 million according to the Supreme Electoral Tribunal about 5.5 million people participated so already pretty low not quite at 50% but quite low participation and of the 5.5 million people who did participate 1.3 million of them cast blank or no vote so some of these could be chalked up to people not filling in the ballot correctly but many of these were actually blank votes and protest votes in some way so it was definitely an extension and protests were really the winners in these votes and you can tell that from the numbers essentially in these elections it was confirmed that there will have to be a second round a runoff election wherein Sandra Torres who is the former first lady she will be facing off Bernando Arrivedo they are going to go to the second round in August but really both of them did not get they were not able to get over 50% of the votes and Torres only got 15.7% Arrivedo got 11.8% these are extremely low percentages for this first round not showing much confidence in really anyone so it's definitely interesting first round and it's important to point out that that these results that this low participation the protest vote these very low numbers of how many of you know even the people are going on to the next round is all because of what's happened with this electoral process up until now and what was the electoral process itself like so as I mentioned there has been a quite a turbulent precedent for these elections you know of course the electoral process took place on June 25th but the whole electoral process leading up to this date when people were casting their votes really created this situation of mistrust of confusion and of lack of confidence in the process and this is largely due to the fact that many many many candidates were actually excluded by the supreme electoral tribunal and specifically a lot of I mean on one hand candidates from the left but even candidates from the center from the right but very specifically there was a candidate Telma Cabrera who's from the movement for liberation of people's MLP quite popular candidate had been really rising in the polls and was seen for many as a left alternative she was excluded another candidate who was leading the voter intention polls with 22% and if we remember these in the first round people were only getting we're getting even less than that so who the leader in the voter intention polls Pineda he was Carlos Pineda he was also disqualified from citizen prosperity party so a lot of these exclusions were justified on procedural grounds that people didn't turn in all of the documents that they were supposed to very very small administrative arguments but really what it chalks up to is trying to create a situation in which those who are going to be favorable to the interests of the ruling class and of course that means not someone like Telma Cabrera who's from a people's movement who's been fighting to get electricity for different communities across the country are not going to be allowed to run and so I think when we look at this low participation this low turnout this is really in response to these crackdown but also of course a broader situation of repression just weeks before these votes were held a journalist who we wrote about on People's Dispatch Jose Ruin Zamora who had been arrested back in July 2022 he was sentenced to six years in prison and Zamora was the editor of a important newspaper in Guatemala that had been investigating crimes of corruption which of course if you've been following what amount of politics over the past several years this is the keyword corruption it's been mobilizing people onto the streets it's a buzzword in politics and this journalist had uncovered several crimes of the Alejandro Diometi government and what do you know he ends up in prison and sentenced to six years so all of these elements are very very important to take into account when talking about these elections as I said there's going to be a second round in August and that will be the defining moment for who's going to be the next president but I think one thing is sure and that is that the people are not do not feel satisfied do not feel listened to do not feel like right now the electoral politics in the country are able to actually respond to their needs and actually is a and and furthermore that it doesn't even represent a legitimate process so we'll definitely be following those events at People's Dispatch thanks a lot for that Zoe China is hosting its first in-person world economic forum also known as Samar Devos since the COVID-19 pandemic the discussions will go on for three days in Tianjin city there are delegations from all over the world attending sessions focused on this year's theme entrepreneurship Barbados, Mongolia, New Zealand and Vietnam are sending prime ministers to attend adding to the diplomatic significance of the event Anish from People's Dispatch has more details of this gathering Anish let's begin with first things first what is the event all about what is the significance of this event well the event as such is not as significant considering the the the array of leaders that will be in China and or has been in China so far and who will be meeting with the leaders there and I think that's far far more significant that have four prime ministers this week itself scheduled to be visiting including the Barbadian Prime Minister and the New Zealand Prime Minister we already saw foreign ministers visit by New Zealand and she has already made statements indicating a very positive response not just from China and but also the fact that that will be significant progress now obviously the countries that will be in China like the leaders of the countries in China will not are not the ones the usual suspects that we usually look at in the anti-China barrage but definitely it includes definitely New Zealand who always has tried to balance between US and China at least under the current labor government or even the previous labor government under Jacinda Ardern what what is quite significant is how these countries are trying to make their relations with China pretty much about the things that matter which is a trade and b climate change now these are obviously small countries many of them will be affected by climate change and obviously they require a big big powers and great powers to actually make commitments and also to invest in their in their commitments for you know for addressing our mitigating climate change today disasters so these are quite significant not just geopolitically but also the overall you know global politics of it despite I mean like they are generally seen as some media reports would tell you as backyards of certain countries but that's not how it is as Mia Motley had already very you know quite a while back when she became the prime minister she actually made the statements how it is just just a sort of a very US-centric kind of worldview where everything is their backyard and not really looking at countries as sovereigns themselves with independent decision making powers on the other hand we have to also see the run up to these meetings where I mean like one of the examples would be very recently how recipients very much distance himself from the US president statement of calling Xi Jinping a dictator now a very irresponsible statement on the part of President Biden and also made at a fundraiser in a manner that pretty much the language which was pretty much echoing of Trump you know boasting and boastful languages that we would have seen at the time where he talked about you know shooting down a balloon and stuff like that but on the other hand we are seeing very clear attempts to pressure these countries into you know doing the line of the United States and their allies we have seen very recently Australia trying to make moves in the region and not just with New Zealand but also in the Pacific region with smaller countries trying to you know broker trade deals but not just trade deals but also security deals that obviously are you know tailored in a manner that tries to keep China out we have also seen in the case of Barbados a lot of US pressure being put on the island in trying to in terms of at least the propaganda machinery that we see very obviously talking about any kind of Chinese projects there or China related projects there being you know some sort of debt trap or some kind of a trap to you know rope in these nations and into being their sort of satellite that is the kind of language that you have to use so coming at a time like this when US China tensions are high these meetings are going to be quite significant smaller as these countries might be they are definitely key geopolitical locations for everybody included and also significantly their independent stand on their sovereign issues have also brought them to attention on various stages as well. Right Anish, so what you say it seems as if the meeting is going to be as much a diplomatic event as it is a trade event? Yes definitely so the diplomacy matter is quite significant here we are already seeing certain neighbors in neighborhood in the East Asia becoming flashpoints of future conflict as we can see and it has actually accelerated even last week when we talked about the Blinken visit to Beijing and his meeting with top officials in China just shortly after that we saw not just that very responsible statement by Biden but also you know multiple maneuvers military maneuvers in the Taiwan Strait and in the South China Sea by the United States very clearly showing and exhibiting that it's not really a resolution that really matters to them for them it's these kind of meetings are basically just at this point just a show just a matter of photo op to show that they have tried to use diplomacy when diplomacy like the commitments that they make in these diplomatic events are not very clearly spoken of now on the other hand the countries that you've seen that have tried to seriously make you know take their relations with China have taken their commitments whenever they whenever they held their meetings far more seriously and these are some of these countries that we're looking at New Zealand for instance as I keep saying like the fact that it is pretty it pretty much falls within the Anglo-Saxon in a sphere of influence and definitely it has the same kind of very much every single marker of any other Anglo-Saxon country we have a very anti-China sort of an anti and a pro-U.S. sort of media is ecosystem there a propaganda machinery that pretty much looks at anything Chinese that very suspiciously even very recently we saw seen the rsz being at the at a sort of not just not necessarily a diplomatic scandal but a scandal in its own where they try to make it out that a certain editing within on on articles about Russia and the Ukraine war and try to you know crack down on that unlike these edits were not that big a deal and it kind of gave a very balanced overview but even that was something that was looked down upon and you know very very much a matter of which and even the editor himself was being you know kind of targeted for being so pro-Russian at the time and this happened quite recently and this in an atmosphere like that when the New Zealand leadership takes a stand it's not necessarily a stand in the sense that they're trying to be neutral in many ways they do not want to take sides they do not want to put themselves in jeopardy and their sovereign interest but the fact that something like this would be you know not only covered that widely but also be discussed as a macro whether they're changing their perspective or changing their stand on things shows how significant these meetings are and like as I said like as much as trade and other matters are quite significant in these cases the diplomacy of this event and the fact that the world at large even within the the pro-us circles and the sphere of influences that we talk about there are independent opinions and diverging opinions within them shows is quite clearly seen in this sort in this set of meetings that here not that does not only happen but is are set to happen in the coming days right Anish thanks very much for joining us and that's all for today thanks very much for watching daily debrief you look forward to seeing you with another episode on Wednesday our regular updates are on peoplesdispatch.org and our social media channels on facebook twitter and instagram our youtube channel has more stories and this show daily debrief thank you again for watching