 That's interesting. The broadcast is now live. So what are we doing here? My God, it's the three of us. It's the three of us again. The gang is back together. The gang is back together. There's Prashant from People's Dispatch, there's Zoe from People's Dispatch and it's me Vijay from Globetrotter and while we're back, this is Give the People What They Want, we're thrilled to be back with you. It's been a big week in the People's Republic of China because they've been celebrating the eradication, abolishment, whatever word you want to use, the end of absolute poverty. Between 1949 and the present, 850 million people have lifted themselves up from poverty in the last year of the pandemic. In fact, perhaps up to 80 million people have walked out of poverty. This meant, of course, a lot of social changes, education, health. It's a multi-dimensional approach to ending poverty. These were not done through cash transfers. This is not just about income and so on. It's multi-dimensional. What Amartya Sen and others have called the multi-dimensional way to understand poverty. So, salutes to the Chinese people for doing this and we really look forward to some of the experiences of the Chinese influencing other poor countries. Meanwhile, of course, guys, look, the United States of America, please abolish hunger and poverty rather than these old shenanigans, decided to bomb a so-called camp of so-called Iranian-backed militias. A lot of so-called because nothing is really clear about who they struck on the Syria-Iraq border. It's true that over the course of these last few weeks, there have been some rocket attacks on the Irbil airport. That's all true. That's documented and so on. In fact, the press secretary who's on record in 2017 against strikes on Syrian soil, she said it's a violation of Syrian sovereignty. As recently as a few weeks ago, she cautioned that there cannot be any retaliation, escalation, things have to be precise and so on. And then you get Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, you know, a man with big stock holdings at Raytheon and so on. The Defense Secretary who used to be in the military himself. Lloyd Austin making a statement, I mean, guys, this is from CNN, okay? This is not from any sources behind the scenes or anything. This is CNN. Lloyd Austin just says, well, we're confident. We're not certain. We're confident that these are the people that conducted those strikes. So what is the margin of confidence? President Joe Biden himself apparently authorized the strike. So it's not some random thing. He himself said, let's hit them. For what, President Biden, retaliation against the attacks in Irbil, okay? That's one thing. You have no proof, not submitted to anybody. You're striking Syrian soil. You don't want any escalation, because they say after all that there shouldn't be any, you know, escalation from another Iranian-backed militia. Last time the US struck in Syria, there were protests at the green zone. I think it's important to tell people that the United States doesn't actually have authorization to have troops in Iraq. I mean, there is no authorization. They have troop presence in Iraq. And they said they did this strike is a defensive move. Now, I'm not sure if geography is the strong suit of everybody, but United States of America is far away from the Syria-Iraq border. So defensive in what case, how are these fellows in Qatar, this, that or the other going to attack the United States? In fact, you're not even clear they attacked, you know, the Irbil Airport. But anyway, this is the world we live in. On the one side, we have serious attempt to end poverty and hunger. On the other side, we have a random press release, you know, from the US State Department and Defense Department, which is printed verbatim, you know, in the world media, including, of course, CNN, which I read almost forensically, you know, I thought the CNN story was more interesting than Jen Pritzker, the press secretary's statement, because it was basically the same thing. So there it is. That's where we are. Meanwhile, of course, you know, south of Iraq and Syria, where there's a kind of miserable, festering politics. South of that, we've seen, you know, a series of strikes, but right through the African continent, there was a significant strike in South Africa, Prashad. You want to walk us through the strike in South Africa? Right. So we're talking, of course, about the general strike that took place in South Africa on February 24th. And that's Wednesday. And this was called by the South African Federation of Trade Unions, one of the biggest confederations of trade unions in the country, it itself has around 800,000 members. And what is interesting about the strike, of course, was that the number of participants far exceeded that probably somewhere in the millions, at least, according to the union's call. And I think this is one of those strikes that we sort of globally need to pay attention to also because South Africa in that sense has been one of the poster countries for how what we call neoliberalism is completely devastated the economy. So what we see is, of course, even the official numbers say that in 2020 alone, over nearly close to 1.5 million jobs have been lost in the country. And say there's a huge economic crisis, the number of economically inactive people is, of course, much, much more higher, probably close to around 5 million or something. And despite all this, the governments say spending the government's efforts to actually address this issue have been really, really poor. And like I said, this is common to so many countries. This is common to, for instance, India. This is common to Brazil. This is common to the United States. Across the world, we have seen all these countries not pursue any serious efforts at increasing spending to alleviate any kind of the, alleviate the impact of the pandemic and instead continuing often with the same kind of austerity politics. And again, in a common theme, continuing with the attack on unions also, which is one of the things South to actually emphasize that during this period, what we've seen is, say, big business in collusion with the government, attacking the unions, using this as an opportunity to actually say fire large amounts of workers. And these plans were always there. These plans were not something new. So we've seen last year in South African airways, we saw massive, you know, reaction by the national unit of metal workers of South Africa and other unions to stop firing. We've seen the same thing in the power utility company, SCOM, where again, there's a huge possibility of a large number of loss of jobs. And what we're seeing is basically that this has been, and of course, you talked about this earlier, this has been the time when millionaires and billionaires have actually increased their wealth while the workers have actually been, you know, moving further and further towards the kind of poverty we talked about earlier. So South to strike that way was very significant because, you know, it, it raised many of these demands, it raised the demand for a, you know, a minimum wage, a basic income grant, a minimum wage of at least $12,500, which is around $54. And also, it raised the demand, for instance, for cutting down the bonuses of, say, the leaders of big business as part of a wealth tax, the money which would then go into, say, you know, providing for those who are actually bearing the brunt of the pandemic. It raised other demands, including a moratorium on job losses and evictions. So all in all, a very powerful strike. There was repression in Cape Town, some union leaders were arrested, and the bulk of the workers stayed away. But as per the plan, because there's still a lockdown going on, there was, there were, of course, demonstrations that took place, the workers coming out across the country, staging demonstrations, even within the limitations imposed by the pandemic. And this, in some senses, is also, you can also see it in the context of another strike, which took place last year, that's in October. And that strike was called by KOSATU, which is the Confederation of South African Trade Unions, a traditional ally of the ruling African National Congress. And at that point, the October strikes of KOSATU and SAFTA working together. So that was actually a very good precedent for trade unions coming together, workers uniting in support of these demands, workers increasingly realizing and mobilizing on the understanding that the government has completely sold out and failed. And this strike again was supported, of course, KOSATU endorsed it. And there is a possibility that as time passes, there is going to be probably more unity around some of these issues. Last week, we talked about the death of some workers, work three workers in South Africa in an accident. And I think that there's been, at least at People's Dispatch, we've been trying to sort of, draw the kind of link, a link that connects many of these workers' issues in the country, where there is on the one hand, a very strong abandonment of the role of the government. And on the other hand, a very powerful mobilization by workers against these causes. So I think there's a lot of these things are very interesting to look forward to and watch also because there is a very similar pattern going on, like I said, in many other countries, especially in some of the bigger economies, India, the United States, Brazil, definitely, all these places, also very similar mobilizations taking place. So yeah. I mean, Prashat, you're sitting in Delhi, where of course, the farmers' protest continues. It's now what? November, December, December, January, January, February. We are now three months into it. Fourth month beginning, started on the 26th of November. We are exactly entering now the fourth month. And this is a resolute struggle. You put this together with you've covered health workers around the world going on strike and now this strike in South Africa. I mean, people are fighting back, but there's a lot of killing. I mean, Zoya, I was looking recently, I think from the end of January to now in El Salvador, El Salvador going into election on Sunday for the National Assembly. I think there's been like a series of politicians of the left being killed in this period, these three weeks or so. Just these three weeks, there's been a series of killings. Nonetheless, it looks like this is going to be quite a contentious election. What's happening in El Salvador, a country, of course, that we pay some attention to because it has a great history of fighting against the constraint on its sovereignty. That's exactly right. El Salvador is a relatively pretty small country in Central America, but it's historically had really big importance in the region. And then also in terms of just people's struggle and people's mobilization and being able to fight for this alternative. Of course, with the Frente Faragundo Martí for the Liberación Nacional, FMLN is the left force that was engaged in armed struggle against dictatorships, was able to defeat the dictatorship and achieve peace agreements in the 90s and give birth to what is a young democracy that is today as members of the FMLN say, deeply under threat. You spoke about these assassinations. Essentially, in I think January, the last days of January, there was, of course, elections are being held this Sunday. FMLN as well as all the other political parties have been in campaign mobilizing and they were driving back from a campaign caravan. There was an armed attack on their vehicle and two members of the party were shot, multiple people were shot, two members were killed. It was, of course, later uncovered that the assailants, the armed assailants were members of the National Police, were members of the ruling party of Navi Bukele. And we're followers of this, what they're explaining is kind of a discourse of hatred against the left in El Salvador. And so I spoke to a candidate from the FMLN this week, Victor Suazo, who's running for the National Assembly. And it was really interesting and it's a very challenging situation because, in El Salvador, there have been repeated and concerted attacks on democratic institutions and on kind of the rule of law in the country. So I mean, just a year ago, on February 9th, 2020, right before the pandemic starts, Navi Bukele with the support of the armed forces storms the National Assembly. And I think this is kind of lost as a really scary and threatening action because, of course, then rapidly after we fall into kind of what is the COVID-19 pandemic, but for leftist forces in El Salvador, this act of storming the National Assembly and usurping power, briefly, but usurping power from the legislative branch is considered as a coup d'etat, and not a traditional coup d'etat, but of course has to be considered as attack on the institutions. And so for them, that's why these elections and fighting for control over the democratic institutions, fighting for kind of the recovery of this democracy that is so young and was fought for with lives in the Civil War, which of course, as a side note, Navi Bukele has criticized the peace agreements and called them a farce, is of immediate order. And so they're going to elections on Sunday. The FMLN is making a powerful campaign with a new generation of militants, a new generation of people committed to protecting this democracy and committed to fighting against authoritarianism. And these are local elections, but of course, they have regional importance, and they have importance in this global struggle against authoritarianism, against encroaching upon our democratic institutions and you know, in defense of democracy. So we really have to, you know, keep watch on El Salvador this Sunday and support the people in their defense of this democracy. You know, I'd just like to say that this is one of the reasons why I always tell people to bookmark peoplesdispatch.org and come on a regular basis to read things because honestly friends, where else do you get such a detailed story on El Salvador and its elections? I mean, I thought the interview you conducted, Zoe was excellent. It brought out the main issues. It brought it out in regional and in national perspective. I mean, I often get so frustrated with the things I read as I opened with the story on the US bombing in Syria, you know, you read CNN, it's comical that we consider ourselves to be part of the same profession. There's something comical in that. You know, Prashant, Al Jazeera has decided to open a new channel, which is to, you know, just sort of go out there and pander to the right wing. And I think why don't you, Al Jazeera, instead of pandering to the right wing, pander to the profession of journalism. Shouldn't that be, you know, what you're going for is pander to journalism, not the right wing. On the other hand, of course, the story of Ahmed Arakat, Al Jazeera has covered that pretty well. And I know that, that, you know, you've been looking at that carefully, June 2020, young man killed, new report out on the killing. Another case of Israeli apartheid violence against Palestinians, a very sad story. This is not somebody without great connections and so on. Prashant, I know that, you know, there's a time when we used to rely on Al Jazeera for coverage of the Arab world. Increasingly, I hope people come to people's dispatch for that coverage. Can't take seriously a channel that says, now we want to have a right wing, you know, section. Honestly, there's something bizarre about that. Tell us what the reports are saying now from forensic architecture and others about Ahmed Arakat. Right. That's, it's a really shocking story for multiple reasons, of course. And it's good that actually this kind of a report came out because Ahmed Arakat was killed in June last year. And it was at a checkpoint near Bethlehem. And it was a huge tragedy because he was actually going to pick up his relatives from a beauty parlor because his sister's wedding was scheduled. His own wedding was scheduled just a couple of weeks from then. A very young man around in his midway, in his mid-20s, 27 year old actually. And the Israelis claimed, of course, that he was going to attack the soldiers, which is, I mean, in, of course, when you know the story, it is, it's really absurd as well. But the point, of course, is that, you know, they made this whole, they made, cooked up this whole story about how there was a threat to their soldiers and this was done in self-defense and all that. And what that, the new report by forensic architectures pointed out that it's completely bogus, that there was no acceleration of the car, there was no attempted ramming, you know, an Israeli soldier or anything of that sort. And what they did after it was a short event, they left him to bleed for almost an hour. When an ambulance was coming, they didn't allow the ambulance to come. And he died. And what is in some senses, perhaps even worse is that his body has still not been returned to his family. That's all, it's close to a year and his body has not been returned. And again, this is not a unique case because there are a number of victims of killings like this. I think right now, the number is somewhere probably over 60, whose bodies have not been returned. And again, I think last year, the number of deaths that were counted of Palestinians being killed was around 27 or something. A large number of them very clearly posing absolutely no threat at all. And this has been recorded. But nonetheless, Israelis continued with this policy of utter impunity. So there's been no, in some cases, regret is sometimes expressed. In some cases, that's not even done in either way, there is often no justice. Before Ahmad Rehqat incident, of course, there was a case of Yadil Halak, another tragic case of Palestinian with autism. Similarly, he led a checkpoint because soldiers threatened him. He was probably scared. He ran and they responded by shooting him dead. And this, of course, sparked a huge number of protests. But again, and again, we come back to this question of basically Palestinians, in multiple things, of course, that Palestinians leading normal lives, going about their normal lives being treated in this manner, being shot dead, having to negotiate checkpoints, of course, in their own land, facing even after that, this kind of indignity, both in terms of being accused of, say, doing these kind of acts and not even being, their bodies not even being allowed to not even being returned to their families for their final rights and for them to even get any the smallest measure of peace. And of course, these are, of course, individual incidents. But like you said, this is, this is a pattern on the same, the same Israel that denied Palestine, the, you know, Palestinians a vaccine just a couple of weeks ago, just last week, when the doses came, they sent them back again at the checkpoint. So it's, it's one of the great atrocities, true apartheid of our times when a young man who's going to, you know, take his pick pick up his relatives for a wedding is shot and allowed to bleed on the streets for one hour. Like you said, he's the nephew of Seba Rakata, who also died last year, a very senior PLO leader. But irrespective of, you know, that the point is same. Very similar instances of young men, young women who were just being killed for being Palestinians. So I mean, lot of demands for the return of the body, of course, for justice, but Israel has continued to be Israel that way. So that's where we are right now. You know, it's a very grim world we live in. I'm right now in Santiago, in Chile, I spent the day at the big cemetery across the river in Ricoletta. You know, there's a section where there's a wall of the disappeared, where there are names of people and you see fresh. I mean, this is now going back 50 years to the coup, you know, 48 years, there are posters still sitting there freshly made, put by families Donde Estan, you know, photograph of a kid, 20 years old disappeared. Somebody said from your loving brother from your mother, they just, there's a wall of just forgotten people, sensitive people of the left, trying to make a difference in their society just taken out. You know, of course, Ahmed Arakat, it's not a political person like that, but just being Palestinian is political in a sense, Prashant. As you say, the indignity goes even into death. And of course, we are now sitting with the question of the Honduras, where Bertha Kakaraz, you know, just killed. And what comes of that every year that goes by, we look back at that killing of again, a sensitive person, just like those young Chileans, just like the many Palestinians. Zoe, of course, you look closely at Honduras, you follow the struggles of Copin and others. Tell us a little bit about, well, one more anniversary, right? One more anniversary. Yeah, this Tuesday, March 2nd, we'll mark five years since the brutal assassination of Bertha Kakaraz and the attempted assassination of Gustavo Castro, who was visiting Bertha at the time. It's another year has gone by and another year, there's no justice. I think something that has been very clear for Copin in these five years of struggle, you know, this case has gotten a lot of international attention. And so, Copin has attempted to use this international visibility to draw kind of this larger point about the impunity that exists, not only in Honduras, but in Palestine, in Chile, in, you know, countries across the world where the elites are able to kill, they're able to disappear, they're able to incarcerate with complete impunity. And I think when we look closely at the case of Bertha and her assassination and the events leading up to assassination, it tells us a lot about the current system that we're living in, the interests behind these murders, these crimes, these horrible atrocities, and kind of what is permitted in this, in this society. And so, with the case of Bertha, you know, for those of you who don't know, Bertha is from, is one of the founders of the Civic Council for Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras. You know, incredible organization has fought for the recognition of Indigenous people in Honduras, which were previously, you know, ignored institutionally, as in the state did not recognize them. They have won really important victories in terms of gaining rights with populations. And beginning in 2010, you know, of course, as a direct impact of the coup in Honduras supported financially, politically, tacitly by the United States, I mean, that's a whole another can of worms that we won't get into right now. But following the coup, there was, you know, roll out of essentially granting concessions to companies with international financing. And so in the territory which Coppine works in, in Pibucá, in the region of the indigenous Lenca people, there was a concession on the sacred Boacarque River to build a hydroelectric dam. And so the community there started organizing, Coppine, which works with these communities, started organizing as well, you know, they were engaged in a very fierce resistance against this project for the protection of their people and in defense of the land and this project that they see as an alternative model to this, what they call, you know, project of death, a project of exploitation and a project of, you know, disrespect to the people. And so they were engaged in this resistance, members of Coppine, members of the community of Rio Blanco were facing attacks constantly. I mean, Bertha was the sixth person that was assassinated in the context of this case, the sixth person. And before her assassination, she was receiving death threats. She was incarcerated several times, attained. She was, you know, being followed, having her phone intercepted. And all of this was in collusion with the state of Honduras, the company DSA, which has the project, you know, has financing from Finland, from the Netherlands, from USAID USA. And so I think the case of Bertha, the fight for justice in the case of Bertha is struggling for justice for people across the world, who are, you know, eliminated by the forces of capital that want to impose this project and will not allow resistance to be waged. And so this Tuesday, I want us all to remember Bertha, her struggle, what she represented, you know, her incredible efforts and actions. And, you know, hopefully she inspires us to continue our struggle in our resistance. I should say that in, in April, people's dispatch alongside other groups, Copeen and so on, will be putting out the tricontinental dossier on Honduras, where we'll emphasize the case of Bertha, but also the murders of the Garifuna people. So please look out for that. We'll talk about that when it's out. That'll be out in early the first week of April. Well, you know, it's a good place to close out, isn't it? But let's go to Venezuela for a minute at the people's dispatch site. Manolo de los Santos and I did a story about the visit by the UN Special Rapporteur on the ill effects, anti-human rights effects of sanctions. Well, Elena Duhan, who's from Belarus, spent 10 days or so in Venezuela, met a range of people and her preliminary findings are extraordinary. I mean, I highly recommend, well, go and read Manolo and my article at People's Dispatch, if you'd like, but also just go to the Human Rights Council and read the report. It's chilling because she shows how the sanctions against Venezuela illegal. They're criminal. They have resulted in a high increase in poverty and in suffering of the people. You know, the Venezuelan government since 1999 has attempted to lift social misery. I mean, that over there is an old Bolivarian computer. It was things like this produced in Venezuela given to people. All of that has faced attrition. And on top of that, of course, the government has had to struggle to meet the basic needs of people. And there's an anti-blockade law that was passed last year. So Manolo and I talked to William Castillo, who's the vice minister for the anti-blockade initiatives. And it's a very interesting series of points that William Castillo makes. So I recommend people go and take a look at it. The European Union after Elena Duhan's report decided to increase sanctions. I mean, it's an interesting thing that after she published the report, there was no real public confirmation of what they thought of it, except the increased sanctions. And then, of course, the Venezuelan government expelled the European Union's ambassador. It's just not a good way for things to happen during a pandemic. It's just not a good way for things to happen. So go take a look at it. It's quite extraordinary what's happening against Venezuela, but not just Venezuela. It's about 30 countries that face unilateral sanctions. I mean, our show today began with the US bombing on the Syria-Iraq border. It's a lawless bombing because it was done without any dossier provided to the UN or anything. I mean, shouldn't one have to prove or show something before one acts in this way? In the same way, these sanctions against 30 countries are illegal, as Elena Duhan points out, because they don't have the imprimatur of a UN Security Council resolution. That's what the UN Charter requires. They just don't, which makes it illegal. The US bombing in Syria does not have the imprimatur of a US Security Council resolution, which is what makes it illegal. I mean, Prashant Zoe, the three of us don't use words like illegal as a synonym for immoral or incorrect. I mean, we use the term illegal with the foundation being the US Charter. I think the UN Charter is the standard of legality as far as I think we are concerned. And I think as far as journalists should, that should be a framework. So that's another week gone by. It's a good week for reporters because there's a lot of bad stories. But I must say, one of the things about people's dispatch and the work we do at Globetrotters, we try to find history in even grim stories that things move ahead. And I'm encouraging you to go to people's dispatch, read the website, follow the journalists from Globetrotter, come back and visit us again next week and give the people what they want. Prashant, are you okay? Are you okay there? Yes. Zoe, you okay? I'm just glad to be back with you guys. Well, as you said, the band's back together again. The band's back together. Feels great. Okay, see you next time. Bye. Until next time. Bye-bye.