 Hello and welcome to the International Daily Roundup by People's Dispatch, where we bring you major news developments from across the world. Our headlines, US Prosecutors Seek Seizure of Iranian Ships en route to Venezuela, Chileans hold nationwide protests against President Sebastian Pinyera on the anniversary of the 1986 protests, Russian voters overwhelmingly approve constitutional amendments in referendum. We begin today with an update on the COVID-19 pandemic. Over 11 million cases have been reported around the world as of today afternoon. Of these, 4.3 million are still active cases and around 524,000 end up in fatalities. The US has reported the biggest spike of daily cases yesterday for any country so far. Over 57,000 cases were added on Thursday, surpassing Brazil's record of 55,000 infections reported on June 19. At least since June 26, the US has surpassed Brazil to report the highest number of daily infections of a country. This has prompted several state administrations, including California, New Mexico and Indiana, to reverse their plans to reopen the economy. Health experts have warned that the numbers could exponentially worsen over the month with daily cases even set to double. Meanwhile, the US has also brought up most of the stocks of the COVID-19 drug Remdesivir. This has raised many questions about the global response to the disease and attempts by the US to corner resources. The US announcement is something, the possibility of this announcement is something we've been talking about at iPhone news click for many months. How will the US respond to Gilead pharmaceuticals once their drug reaches some amount of stability and we've seen what's happened? Many countries are extremely worried. So how do you, this was in some senses expected, but how do you see this playing out? We've been talking about it, you're right, about the vaccine war, the drug war, essentially that unless other countries are able to manufacture drugs and vaccines, it's quite possible that the US will privilege itself beyond the first in the queue and others will have to wait till the US crisis is over. And at the rate the US is going, that crisis is not going to be over for a long time. So effectively, it does mean that the rest of the world does not know now what to do in spite of the fact this warnings have been there for quite some time. And in the world health assembly, this issue had come up that what about the patents being put in a common pool, which should be accessible by to many countries. And the US had said no, that this is against intellectual property rights, which the companies have, therefore they will not support it. And they have taken the first step by saying, well, all of Gillian's medicines are ours first and then we will see what happens to the rest of the world. Now, this in a certain sense is really straightforward, because we've got this battle over AIDS epidemic earlier, when the medicines were not available from the global south, and they were not also available because of a very high price, which is being asked, the concessional price at that stage was $4,000 against $12,000 to $15,000 or $10,000 to $15,000, at which they are available in supposedly the home market. So even those prices were very high, but at $4,000, it was a death sentence for us from the world. Remdesivir is a particularly egregious case, because it's a small molecule. The cost of this molecule is probably not more than $10 for a full five day course. This is not what I'm saying. This is what there has been institutions which have been working on it, have worked out the detailed costing, and they have come to the figure that about $10 is the total cost of production. Now, Remdesivir is also being charged to even the US customers at $3,000 for the insured, for those who are going to the hospitals, we're not insured, it's $2,000, but that is 200 times the cost or 300 times the cost of the production of the medicine, production cost of the medicine. So already you are seeing profiteering on a very high scale. Even in the US had not done that, what it has, capturing the total stock, the issue of actually licensing Remdesivir compulsorily would have been there. And this is what we have been arguing for some time. We hadn't flagged the issue that US might capture most of the stock of medicine, we had raised this. But our also concern was the price which we are going to get. In India the price is being talked of is about roughly about $400, $25,000 to $30,000 to $350,000 to $400 is the price that is being talked of, so that that price is completely out of the question for large sections of the Indian people. So the question of profiteering is they're very much there vis-a-vis Gilead and also vis-a-vis the United States now saying, you devil take the hindmost, we take the bulk of the medicine that is there. Now, this as I said, because it's a small molecule, it can be produced by any country in the world which has a reasonable degree of chemical infrastructure, for again a reasonable degree of chemical infrastructure, because it is the earlier patented version, which Gilead claims to have tweaked and improved, has been found effective in cat viruses, cats get affected by another coronavirus and this was found effective against cat coronavirus. So this is being sold in the black market by people who run essentially garage operations and some of them run it out of China and it's available as mail order. So it effectively can be produced anybody with the modicum of chemical knowledge, because it's essentially a small molecule, it's not a biological drug, which really requires a much bigger set of equipment, knowledge, et cetera, et cetera to handle. This can be done by any country in the world with a small or reasonable chemical production infrastructure. So in this particular case, to use patents to deny any other country this medicine and then take over the entire production of it, which is what the two steps the United States has done, one vetoing, not vetoing, but saying they don't agree with the basically the patent fool idea and the second now capturing all the production for itself. I think makes it the case for compulsory licensing of remdesivir is much stronger than it was when it is just simply a price question, which could be negotiated. But now it's no longer that it's the, that what is called the API, the bubble drug, what is called the active pharmaceutical ingredient, which is there, which comes from Gilear at the moment, even to India, at least this plans to come to India and come to SIPLA. I think SIPLA and Hetero are the two companies which have got the agreement with Gilear to sell it in the Indian market. Now they will not just get the active pharmaceutical ingredient either. So given all of this, I think the case for compulsory licensing has just increased enormously. And I think this is an US overreach that has taken place. Of course, the question is, will Mr. Modi, in this case, our Prime Minister, take on Trump, Donald Trump earlier yet, you know, if you remember, we had stopped hydrochloroquine export from India and Trump's under Trump's threat, we agreed. Now, of course, hydrochloroquine did not become very useful. So that's a different issue. But now that we know that this medicine is useful, it does reduce the time of infection by about 20, 20%, 15 to 20%. We also know it doesn't work on people who are seriously ill. There we have the dexamethasone, which are basically blood thinner and one is a corticosteroid. Dexamethasone is a corticosteroid. That relieves the inflammation. So seriously, in patients, remdesivir really has no effect. So but it does have effect in cutting down the infection speed, therefore slowing down the transmission of the disease also. So therefore, it still has some value for us that in this particular case, instead of looking at the common good of humanity, that the US should be talking about intellectual property and monopoly over the drug at the moment. This seems to fly in the face of what the world needs and also shows, shall we say, the kind of exceptionalism that the US believes in, that it has, the world's good doesn't matter to it. It has only respect for its own good. And in this particular case, the good of Gilead, because it's also getting a fact price for the drug. And of course, that the American people will get this drug at least available through their insurance cover. And that is what is in store for the rest of the world, that unless we break patents, we manufacture it ourselves, remdesivir is not going to do medicine, which is accessible to the rest of the world. In this context, the two questions, one Gilead does claim that it has arrangements with companies in various other parts of the world, and that this will continue, although the modalities of it are still very uncertain as of now, it's still a process, still a bit of a trial. But more importantly, is there right now the global mechanism to actually confront the United States on this issue and say, make sure that it cannot go ahead with these kinds of actions? I think that that's not the role we should take, how to confront the US. The question is, what, how quickly can we break Gilead patent and ratchet up our production? If we accept that they have the right to monopolize the intellectual property, more than production itself, really raising the issue of intellectual property, then we've given the game away. So I think the basic issue is, can you break that monopoly of patent? And answer is yes. Most countries have compulsory licensing under its, in its kitty, in their kitty. And so does the world. In fact, WTO itself in 2001, the Doha declaration had accepted that yes, countries can break the patent and can license companies within their country and also outside, that means can import this from anywhere. This is under conditions where there is a health emergency, out there is an epidemic and in this case it's both, COVID-19 is really both. The countries have the right to do so. So we have a right to do so. When we have a right, why should we beg, confront, fight? We should exercise the right. And sure, US has the right to say it's company within the shores, it will take over all the production. That's the right it has. So we have the right to manufacture it in India. So we should. Now the question is, why is it that when Gilead says that they're making other arrangements, why don't I trust it? Because Gilead for the last six months has been trying to buy up all the possible ingredients that go into the manufacture of this particular drug. And therefore they have stockpiled a large amount of base chemicals which are required for the production of this particular drug. I do not know enough chemistry to say how it can be done alternatively. That's something that we really need to explore. And we should have explored by this time. It would have been very foolish if government of India did not instruct the CSI laboratories who have made process engineering one of their strengths. That's how the whole genetic industry in India came about. That I would be very surprised if they have not taken steps to also know how reducible equivalents can be manufactured and what are the base chemicals you require for it and some stockpile of the same. So I think that is the road down which we have to go. When fronting the US is playing to its strength, that doesn't really work. Because no country can say, no, your company has to give me Gilead medicine. So you're really asking the US to ask Gilead to give you medicine. When by right you can produce it in your own country. So I think that's the route to take. How quickly can the world augment remdesivir production in different parts of the world? I would be very surprised and it would be criminal on the part of the governments involved if they have not taken steps already because this writing has been on the wall since the day in the World Health Assembly. The US said it does not recognize the concept of a patent pool. Companies has to be compensated for their intellectual property. Therefore, they will not accept the World Health Assembly resolution. So this remdesivir battle has been brewing from that time. And that's why we had raised the warning. If you remember in news click on a number of earlier occasions, that this is a battle which is there. Yes, it's true. The remdesivir is not a life saver. It could have been, but it is not. It's also not true that it will completely cure you. It won't, but it does reduce the infectious period. Today, I would take any game in this fighting against COVID-19 as something that we need to really hold close to us. Because even if I reduce the infectious period by 20%, that means there's a 20% weakening of the transmission of COVID-19. The people who are infected are the ones who transmit. So a 20% reduction is also significant in that sense. So I do not think that these are the issues that we should really worry about that how important it is, whether we should really beg from the United States, whether we should confront the United States. We just should go ahead and start what we need to do to manufacture the remdesivir generic. Continuing with the United States, federal prosecutors have appealed for the seizure of four Iranian ships that are expected to supply fuel to Venezuela. A civil forfeiture appeal was filed before the federal court in the US capital of Washington DC on Thursday. The appeal to seize the ships is based on the allegations that the transaction is facilitated by an Iranian expatriate businessman in the UK with alleged ties to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps or the IRGC. The IRGC, an official paramilitary force in Iran, has been named as a terror organization by the Trump administration as part of escalating tensions with Iran. Prosecutors allege that the proceeds of the shipments will go to funding the organization. The four Iranian ships named in the forfeiture case are the Bela, the Behring, the Pandy, and the Luna, which the US prosecutors claim are carrying over 1.1 million barrels of fuel to Venezuela. One of them has apparently already left for the Pacific from the Persian Gulf. In May, Iran delivered a flotilla of four super tankers carrying fuel to Venezuela, which was reeling from severe shortages due to US sanctions. Since then, Iran has also sent ships in June carrying tons of food supplies to open a supermarket in the Venezuelan capital Caracas. Iran also at the time promised to keep up a steady supply of fuel and food shipments to Venezuela. Both Iran and Venezuela are under unilateral sanctions by the US. In our next story, Chilean social movements are undertaking a two-day national protest against President Sebastian Pineru. The protests, which began on Thursday, are set to conclude tonight and are conducted under the banner of for food, work, life, and dignity. The call for protests was also called to revive a national movement against neoliberalism that began in October 2019 and went on for almost five months until the coronavirus outbreak. The protests were organized to coincide with the 34th anniversary of the national strike against dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet in 1986. The 1986 protests became a milestone and laid the foundation for the struggle for the restoration of democracy in the country. Yesterday, thousands demonstrated across the country calling out the mishandling of the COVID-19 crisis, along with food shortages and insufficient aid for the vulnerable. Several thousands banned utensils from their homes to display their discontent. Incidents of police repression were also reported as well. The national police force, the Carabineros, violently dispersed peaceful protests through tear gas and water cannons in the national capital. Nevertheless, the protests are set to continue today as planned by the organizers. And finally, on Thursday, the Russian Central Election Commission, or the CEC, announced the results of the week-long referendum held on amendments to the 1993 Russian constitution. Around 78% of the voters favored the amendments and 21% opposed it. The amendments will allow President Vladimir Putin to stand again for the presidency in the next elections in March 2024. He may potentially stay in power till 2036. Polling on the referendum was conducted through June 25th through July 1st. The voting period was extended from a single day to a week in order to avoid crowding at the polling stations and maintain physical distancing. Voters were allowed to cast their vote in specially organized voting areas through their mobile phones and online. According to official figures, the final voter turnout was 65%. The amendments were passed by the Russian Parliament in March and subsequently by most of the state parliaments. With the referendum results, it is expected to come into effect soon. The amendments will also empower the state duma to appoint the prime minister in the cabinet. The amendments give precedence to Russian constitution and laws over international law. They will also empower the Federation Council to intervene in the removal of judges of the constitutional and supreme courts. It also proposes the consolidation of the status and role of the state council or the federal executive, grants more power to the constitutional court, protects the baseline of the minimum wage and provides for the indexation of pensioners. That's all we have in this episode of the International Daily Roundup. We'll be back on Monday with more news from around the world. Until then, keep watching People's Dispatch.