 Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Your weekly movement news roundup. 24th of December 2021. These journalists never take a break. Some people celebrate this day as Navidad, Christmas Eve, etc. Not happening. Give the people what they want. First, I want to thank you very much for being with us. For some of you, only a few of you posting selfies of yourself watching this show. We encourage that every show. Because you're with Zoe and Prashant from People's Dispatch. I'm Vijay from Globe Trotter. We encourage you to take a selfie as you watch this show. Don't forget, we're alert. We have Excel sheets and we keep your names. And we wonder where those who are absent are. Just like Santa. Santa's doing with his naughty and nice list. Just like us. Well, we're laughing and we're pretty happy because there was an interesting election in Chile. Zoe, take us to Santiago, Valparaiso and all the other beautiful parts of that country. Well, we laid out kind of what was at stake last week. We have, on one hand, Jose Antonio Cast, who's son of a Nazi, quite openly anti-feminist, anti-migrant, was against the process of rewriting Chile's constitution, which was a demand that came from the streets from the 2019 uprising there. And then he was facing off against Gabriel Bori, who is a student leader, has been very much part of the struggles in Chile for the last decade, part of the approved dignity coalition. And so we know kind of what was at stake there. And then the Sunday, the people of Chile voted, their voice was heard, and Bori won the presidency with 55% of the votes. This is an enormous victory in Chile, just in terms of setting back from decades of conservative neoliberal rule, decades of the Chilean people being excluded from education, being excluded from healthcare, even their pensions being run by private firms. I mean, what's interesting to see is that some of the first promises of Bori is not only of continuing the constitutional process of rewriting the constitution and supporting this, but also making sure those social demands are addressed, that these things which have long been privileges in Chile become rights. And I think, you know, the importance of this victory, of course, you know, as with any politician, he has a setback, but I think this importance of this victory can be seen really across the continent, the region, by the reactions of, you know, other leaders. We're seeing a real shift towards progressive politics in the region. I mean, now, for example, Chile's neighbor Bolivia, Bolivia is of course run by the movement towards socialism, government for years Bolivia was fighting to get access to the sea, which Chile had consistently blocked. Now, with the possibility of having a relationship, diplomatic ties between these two countries, will that be a possibility? I think there's a lot of different instances of what this, you know, progressive government in Chile will mean for the rest of the region. Of course, they're going to be, you know, important battles ahead. The struggle doesn't end at the ballot box, but is a process that continues. I think, you know, Chile's movements, which have been very active during the past several years and really the past decade are going to continue on the streets to make sure that these important demands, you know, are reached to make sure that Chile has good foreign policy to make sure that it is engaging with its neighbors and being part of this Latin American integration project. I think, you know, it's a real, we're seeing a real change in the tide on the continent and it's really an exciting moment. It's an exciting moment coming one after the other sequentially. It's not just Chile as you have been reporting, but, you know, Honduras, Peru and so on. Not sure exactly where the tide will go. Not sure if this is a pink tide. Commodity price is low. Chile has access to international capital minimal. Let's see what is going to come of the Chinese role in South America. China plays a significant role. Let's see what happens. But I know that people's dispatch will be on the case. Globetrotter will be on the case. We'll be looking at this. That's Chile, relatively hopeful story. Meanwhile, Afghanistan, ugliness, ugliness. Winter is set in. There's no food. The United States still kidnap, hijack the money of the Afghans. Now we get news from Yemen about rations and so on. Starvation, legion across the planet. Prashant, what's the latest from the World Food Program and Yemen? Right, which is a very depressing estimate from the World Food Program. Actually, it stated just earlier this week that it'll have to cut down on the supply of food that it's producing. If you look at the numbers, it has been providing food aid to 13 million Yemenis right now. That's more than the population of many countries in the world. The number of people in Yemen who are receiving food aid from the World Food Program. And now what it says is that from January, nearly 8 million of these people will receive reduced rations. And why is that so? Because there's a massive shortage in funding. There are not enough donors. So if you look at the World Food Program, it's against own numbers. They're saying that they're facing a shortage of $813 million to carry out food assistance to Yemenis till May 2022. Another $1.97 billion needed till the end of the year. So that is where we are right now in the sense that 8 million people who are already living through what the worst humanitarian disaster of the century are going to even receive lesser rations. Because a program as vital as the World Food Program does not necessarily have the resources to actually continue providing this aid. And I think this is both in practical and moral terms, this is a huge question to the entire world at a time when we again discuss this quite often, the amount of arms sales, for instance, how it has continuously increased over the years. We saw recently a report which said that, say, governments have been continuing to buy more weapons in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic when compared to the previous year, despite the fact that economies had contrasted so much. And again, earlier this year, we had reported about how from 2016 to 2020, Saudi Arabia's arms imports had increased by 61%. And we have to remember, of course, that Saudi Arabia is one of the key, most important countries that has actually caused this crisis in Yemen. Because when it intervened at a head of a coalition in 2015, in what was a purely Yemeni matter, the Houthis, of course, had overthrown the government of the Rabban sur Hadi. At that point, the Saudis in 2015, the Saudi-led coalition intervening, conducting thousands of air raids, which has destroyed infrastructure of the country, which has destroyed, killed thousands of people. I think the overall estimate of the total number of deaths is believed to be in the range of over 350,000 now. And we have, of course, millions of people on the verge of starvation. Again, some of these numbers are extremely horrific. For instance, we have that 24 million people are dependent on international aid, 2.3 million children in Yemen suffering from acute malnutrition, 400,000 of whom are suffering from life-threatening malnutrition. So this is the context in which, say, this World Food Program announcement comes and it's extremely depressing and horrifying thought. And incidentally, just a few days ago, the Saudis bombed Sanaa Airport as well, saying that it was being used for, what do you call it, militant activity or military activity, despite the fact that the Sanaa Airport is one of the few outlets for humanitarian aid to enter the country. According to the Houthis, the airport is now out of commission. So I think that, you know, 2021, again, the first year of the Biden administration, Biden, of course, promised that, you know, he seemed receptive initially to criticisms of the U.S. support of the Saudi Arab coalition. Towards the end of the year, nothing seems to have changed. There is still a weapons deal very much on the cards, I believe, at 650 million. And I think this really shows how, you know, despite all these claims made in the capitals of the West about humanitarian aid, despite all these criticisms stored at other countries about human rights, how are the countries of the West and capitalist countries led by the U.S. supporting some of the worst humanitarian disasters of the century in countries like Yemen. For that matter, in countries like Afghanistan, as you said, it was only yesterday, so many months later, that the U.S. Security Council has passed a resolution for aid and the United States Treasury has given authorizations despite the massive hunger that's prevailing in the country. So I think as we round up 2021, these are some very important questions to ask of countries such as the United States who are otherwise always talking about human rights. You know, you mentioned the Saudi bombing of Sana'a airport. You say one of the main avenues for aid to enter the other is Udaida port. Udaida port constantly under attack, assault, not able to function. Port of Aden, you know, they're not able to bring in aid and the population in Yemen, I just want to tie these things together. Okay, the population in Yemen that requires food aid, that means they will starve without food is almost the same as the population of Chile. So imagine the entire population of Chile is starving in Yemen. Now that's Yemen. We don't know exactly who the Saudis killed in that bombing in Sana'a, but on Sunday last I sat down. I normally spend very little time on the New York Times website, but I was fascinated by a long study done by Professor Azmat Khan of Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. She has looked at a series of logs of bombings in Syria and Iraq. These were published by the New York Times and I must say, give them credit where it's due. This was a really important analysis. It's called the civilian casualty files. Thousands of logs of attacks by the United States and in Iraq and Syria. These are in the contemporary period, not going back 10 years and so on. For instance, one report from July 2016, the bombing of Tokhar in northern Syria, 120 civilians killed. What's extraordinary is that the United States military has constantly denied any civilian casualties and what Azmat Khan has found in her diligent, dogged reporting. She went to Syria and went to 100 places where these targeting had taken place and checked what went on on the ground. It's incredible, incredible work. So I had soft to Azmat Khan but what she shows is in 5,400 pages of record, she says, there is an institutional acceptance of an inevitable collateral toll. This is very fine language. What she means is the US government is quite happy to kill civilians. That's the bottom line. There's a whole series. I couldn't take my eyes off these reports but on March 20th 2017, a factory was bombed in the residential neighborhood of Tabaka. The government knew that there were children in that factory and nonetheless bombed them. At least 10 children were killed. There is enough evidence in this trove to show that there are war crimes. Enough evidence, ample evidence in fact, ample evidence because as I said in the notes that I took from there, they are quite clear that there were civilian casualties and in fact they seem to have known this prior to bombing. At the Tokhar attack afterwards, they said there's no evidence of negligence or wrongdoing. Said no further action necessary but they knew that they had done something terribly wrong. They said they were attacking ISIS but they killed farmers. They admitted to kill 24, turns out 120. That's in the present. I was struck friends to read another report, this published in Haaretz, coming from the Akiwat Institute for Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Research. Again, very limited reporting on this. They reported on the 1948 ethnic cleansing or genocidal activity against the Palestinians. Two operations caught my eyes, Operation Yoav and Operation Hiram. Operation Yoav was in the Negev in the south and what's extraordinary here on October 29, 1948, soldiers from the 8th Brigade killed up to 120 Palestinians in the village of Aldawayima and here's what's interesting. A soldier who witnessed the events and whose testimony was taken said there was no battle and no resistance. The first of us killed 80 to 100 Arab men, women and children. The children were killed by smashing their skulls with sticks. There wasn't a house without people killed in it. This is extraordinary. This is from 1948 and again front page news not there on the front pages I'm afraid. I wanted to emphasize these two reports because at least the report by Professor Azmat Khan reminds us once again that Julian Assange is in prison in Belmash and after all what did Julian Assange do but reveal war crimes conducted by the US government in Afghanistan, in Iraq and in other places. Professor Azmat Khan has revealed deep war crimes committed by the US in the contemporary period in Syria and in Iraq. No heads will roll. No heads will roll. There is no justice for the victims of this kind of bombing. Just as there's been no justice for the Palestinians. Now this report at Herat's reveals the depth of the brutality. I think it's important for us to keep banging on about this because you don't deal with the past, you repeat it in the present and I think that's a particularly unfortunate adage that has some reality. If you don't deal with it in the past, you'll repeat it in the present. You're listening to give the people what they want coming to you from People's Dispatch. That's peoplesdispatch.org with Zoe and Prashant, your superb reporters, co-editors. They do everything. They even make the biryani and I'm Vijay from Globetrotter coming to you on Christmas Eve. Imagine that and none of us are Christians but we're happy to be here with you ready to eat our Chinese food or biryani or whatever. Well, not an easy time for people to celebrate with their families. Variants upon variants. Delta, Omicron. What comes next? Pi? Is it going to be Pi, Zoe? I am not an expert in the succession of the Greek alphabet so I'm going to hold off on commenting on that. But, yeah, I mean, I think it's an interesting moment because I think in global north countries people have kind of come to the acceptance for some reason that COVID was over we're in a post-COVID world and that is clearly not true. We're seeing record levels of new cases in cities across the U.S. the U.K. has registered more cases than it ever had in one day of the pandemic and there's this sense of shock disbelief but really I mean people especially on the African continent doctors, scientists have been warning about this over the last year ever since the vaccine was invented ever since private pharmaceutical companies came out with these vaccines you know, leaders across the global south even leaders that have anti-people positions such as Narendra Moli have been saying that the vaccine patents have to be liberated. There's no way that the world is going to get over COVID and have that in somehow the rear-room year if half of the world is unvaccinated and I think in Latin America there have been tremendous strides made that gap has been really coming from Brazil for example which for a while was slowing vaccination rate now it has a higher vaccination rate than the U.S. for example there's a lot less vaccine hesitancy and Cuba of course has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world and their cooperation with other countries in the region has been fundamental whereas Africa across the continent the level of vaccine vaccine rate is almost 8% and this is not due to anything else besides corporate greed besides the unwillingness to actually take Africa seriously as a continent and make sure that vaccines are being delivered make sure that these countries have the capacity to produce them for example Nigeria just had to throw out over over a million doses of AstraZeneca vaccines that had expired because what global countries are willing to give to the global south and specifically African continent hoarding their vaccines and then okay actually we don't need these now we can give them to the global south and this is just a horrible attitude and I think we're almost at two years since coronavirus has declared a global pandemic and we still haven't learned that cooperation that solidarity with other people as humane and that the importance of their humanity is crucial to actually overcoming the virus I think people in the US are rightly so they're upset their Christmas plans are delayed I think the impact of Omicron here is likely to be much less intense than other variants just because majority of the population is vaccinated it seems to be have a milder impact but that is not the same in other continents where they just have not had a vaccine and so you know we had a really great article written by our colleague Pavan Kulkarni about vaccine access about the you know sorry 9.2 million COVID cases in Africa and I really encourage people to pay more attention to this we still have to you know fight for these vaccine patents to be lifted we still have to fight for you know equal access across the world because it isn't enough for people to have a vaccine that this is going to be fine and in the United States vaccine has somewhat stabilized at 60 percent because people say all kinds of odd things about the vaccine they don't know what's in them and so on you don't know what's in the vaccine and yet you eat hot dogs very curious situation I must say vaccination is the key here and well I know that lots of people don't believe that but so be it vaccinations healthcare workers Turkey has been in a major crisis inflation rates very very high very high up to 60 percent is perhaps the real annual inflation rate minimum wages are at the lowest level in all of Europe they've been protests across Turkey we've seen the auto workers education workers a range of workers in major strikes in the middle of all this healthcare workers took to the streets last month there was a so called white march as healthcare workers in white coats marched between Ankara and Istanbul making a very strong point that their lives were at stake as they were treating people with covid remember the days when one used to hear about essential workers and so on I haven't heard the phrase essential workers thank you for your service and so on in a very long time people came to have forgotten them nonetheless as you will see if you visit peoplesdispatch.org many many countries have healthcare workers struggles whether it's in East Africa or it's in South America and so on many many countries peoples dispatch has been keeping a close eye accumulating the stories of these struggles Turkey the struggle has been intense because the government in the middle of this pandemic in the middle of the protests against the government the government had a bill tabled in parliament to improve the working conditions and salaries of the healthcare workers and then they withdrew it mysterious withdrawal not unexpected withdrawal of the bill and then the healthcare workers went out on a short strike and so on I'm going on a little bit about this issue because I want to put on the table the fact that we have we have covered this across the world it's an important issue but it doesn't get much attention in the sense that there's been a lot of attention on vaccine and vaccine apartheid but we're also kind of forgetting the plot of what's been revealed once more in Turkey which is the workers who are behind all this even the vaccination workers these are people putting themselves in a position of risk including of course delivery workers where the make Amazon pay campaign the delivery workers going on strike and so on is significant at any rate Mr. Erdogan like many politicians in the west went for a herd immunity type of strategy you know let's get a significant amount of the population you know get them immunity and that's going to take care of things. What the health workers objected to and this is what I learned in talking to people is that some 500 Turkish health workers have died in the front lines on COVID and this is what the health workers I think are mostly upset by the fact that they are being considered casualties in a herd immunity strategy they would like better care we saw this in India as well in the early days of the pandemic when Asha workers women not only not treated as workers but treated as volunteers paid not a salary not a wage but an onrarium very modest amount of money would go into places to check frontline workers on COVID would be using plastic bags instead of gloves would be covering their faces with their dupattas with their cloth instead of proper masks and so on many of them being inflicted by COVID taking it back to their peasant working class homes where people live cheek by jowl there's no opportunity to isolate and so on it was that protest by Asha workers a year ago which is being in a sense mirrored in Turkey mirrored everywhere I'm going to keep an eye on this in the new year we're wrapping up this year because the calendar ends but these processes don't end there is no end somebody made a joke the other day that 2022 sounds a lot like 2022 that we are entering 2020 again perhaps it's pretty distressing to think like that we're going to come back as our last story to Ethiopia to the horn of Africa really our colleagues at Breakthrough News went and reported from Ethiopia from Eritrea very good story very good coverage Prashant take us to the war in Ethiopia right just to sort of continue on your point a great video on Breakthrough News from our colleagues Eugene and Rania who were there reporting on what some US measures in terms of removing Ethiopia from an agreement for instance the impact it's having on industrial sectors and this has been a continuous campaign by the US and is actually likely to have a lot of effects on Ethiopian workers across the spectrum recent development over the past week has been what looks like definitely some breakthroughs as far as the war is concerned because we do have the Tigray people's liberation front the rebel group which launched the civil war in November 2020 finally deciding to withdraw back to its own province and now this is a key moment because it's important to remember that it's important to remember the chronology of the civil war first of all where in November 2020 the TPLF started it the government announced a ceasefire after you know after one round of battle after the TPLF had been defeated the government announced a unilateral ceasefire in June and we drew and once again the TPLF resumed the offensive in July entered the neighboring provinces of Amara and Afar caused a huge amount of displacement, damage, thousands of deaths, a lot of human rights abuses and atrocities as well many of which are still yet to be properly chronicled on the ground all this while of course the United States and its allies have been covertly and overtly supporting the TPLF recently some weeks ago spoke to a very senior expert diplomat who firmly believed for instance that the Biden administration was very strongly backing the TPLF and now we are in a situation where after months of war including when Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiyah went to the front lines to lead the troops the TPLF has actually been pretty much forced to withdraw back to its own province the latest news of course being that the government has said that its forces will not enter Tigray Ethiopian forces being very careful the government being very careful that it does not want to fall victim to accusations of violence once again which is what they're concerned about especially especially because there are fresh moves in the UN to conduct human rights investigations again important to note that there was another round of investigations conducted previously which exonerated Ethiopian government so they're a bit worried about that but I think for viewers across the world it's important to note this battle this fight that's been going on because it's a key area of US imperialism as expert such as Dr. Elia Samaria pointed out the fact that over the past few years Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia were coming closer together and adopting a new plan forward which problem as far as the United States is concerned they wanted to destabilize the region and that's when the TPLF rebellion was probably one of the aspects of that so yet again like we said talked about in Yemen like we talked about in Afghanistan another instance of what seems to be US strategies in terms of destabilizing the region fairly close to Ethiopia of course is Libya as well where elections have been postponed again going back to 2011 where the NATO intervention basically destroyed a country which was quite stable and its impact continues to this day so one can definitely hope that there is the possibilities of peace rising once again in Ethiopia and the project which seems to be a very important project and a very important strategic region of countries of that locality of that region coming together in setting their own course as opposed to being dictated by US and other interests is actually what is what the people of that region would want what is most beneficial for the people of that region so this of course a key moment we'll have to see in the coming days and weeks how this process unfolds still a lot of uncertainty about what's going to happen but for the moment it looks like this is a very important milestone. Wow that's really interesting and I think what you said about the regional context in the Horn of Africa is important it bears in mind that across from the Horn of Africa is Yemen that war is got to wind down at some point let's hope for the new year you've been listening to give the people what they want which is your favorite weekly movement news round up better come up with those selfies where keeping tabs on you remember I mentioned that we need those I mean it's the Christmas night and yet we have a show next week is the 31st of December do we really want to come back and give you what you want on the 31st of December the last day of the year? Totally we got it that's a 2 to 1 I think well we recently found out that one of our very faithful viewers has been rebroadcasting the show simultaneously translating to Tamil we can't let him down let's not let you down we'll be back next week 31st of December the last day of the year perhaps that will be our real news round up give the people what they want brought to you from People's Dispatch and Globe Trotter see you next week and don't drink too much do we endorse that? present