 Hello, you're watching Daily Debrief brought to you by People's Dispatch. I'm Pragya. The conflict in Yemen has completed eight years. Today, we discuss the country's worst-than-ever humanitarian crisis. We go next to the United States which wants to spend $7.1 billion over 20 years in three Pacific Island nations as it seeks to renew COFAS, its Compacts of Free Association with the Marshall Islands, Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia. In sports, we look at trans women athletes dealt a blow by the World Athletics Council. The Saudi Arabia led interventions in Yemen started on 26 March 2015. Eight years on, the crisis in Yemen has reached gigantic proportions. The humanitarian distress has made Yemen among the poorest countries. Saudi airstrikes dealt a blow to Yemen's people and its economy. International organizations have called Yemen's crisis the worst in recent history, especially its refugee crisis. What is the situation in Yemen today? Is it likely to change for the better in coming months? Abdul from People's Dispatch is in the studio with us. Abdul, eight years of the war in Yemen, can you tell us what has been the impact on the people of Yemen, on the infrastructure in Yemen? What is the scale of the devastation we are talking about? The scale is, if you want to discuss the devastation of Yemen, if you see the UN statement about Yemen being the worst humanitarian crisis of the century, that explains everything. Even before the war, Yemen was one of the poorest countries in the world and the poorest country in the Arab world. And since the war, more than 95 percent of its population has slipped under the poverty line. Millions of Yemenis, 33 million is the actual population, but more than 80 percent, it means 26 to 27 million of Yemenis are dependent today on some kind of aid, whether it is provided by the UN or, and most of the cases, the aid is not reaching them primarily because of the blockade imposed by the Saudi-led international coalition. So that is one. Then thousands of Yemeni children have been killed in these eight years of war. According to the UN's own figure, more than 11,000 children have been killed since 2015. But that is the figure which is verified. There are thousands of more which the children who have died, there is no official record for it. And if you see the disparities between the figures proposed by the UN, which says that around 377,000 Yemenis have been killed since 2015, since the war began, till 2021, end of 21, that is the official figure we have. But the Yemeni government claims that more than 1.5 million Yemenis have been killed in this period. And this, when we talk about people killed in this eight years period, we are not talking only about the people who are killed directly due to the war. Means, airstrikes carried out by the Saudi Arabia inside Yemen, or during the actual ground war. We are also talking about the causes created by the blockade, which has basically impacted in, because Yemen is predominantly, Yemen's economy predominantly is import based. The grain, the food grains, medicine, all the essential commodities, most of the essential commodities come from outside. And because of the blockade, sea, land, blockade imposed by Saudi Arabia, the imports have been affected. Of course, the government is also not in a position to import goods from outside, primarily because the economy has collapsed. And whatever natural resources Yemen has, they are basically, most of the time are under the conflict, either Saudi-led coalition controls it, then Houthis control them sometimes. And because of that fight, they are most of the time are not available. The revenue from them is not available to buy goods from outside. So all of this in total has led to the death of hundreds of thousands of Yemenis. Poverty, widespread poverty, almost the entire population is under the poverty line. And this has also led to a larger destruction of the basic infrastructure required for human civilization in Yemen. And the thing is that the war continues. Is there any chance, especially from recent developments that the position of the countries involved will change and there is a hope for peace? Yeah, it seems that there is an opportunity at this moment to kind of end the war and kind of achieve peace in Yemen, primarily because of the recent development, which basically is very crucial. The rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, of course, mediated by Chinese, that creates a greater possibility of peace in Yemen. Primarily because the war in Yemen started in 2015 because Saudis claimed that the rise of the Houthis in Yemen is basically a rise of Iranian influence. And since Iran is hostile country, the rise of Houthis in the neighborhood basically creates a security threat to them. So that was the justifications Saudis had proposed. And since now there is a possibility that their hostility will be reduced because of the restoration of diplomatic relations, that may lead to have some kind of impact on the war in Yemen as well. Also, since last year when there was an UN-led ceasefire, which was also a rarity, which lasted only for six months, officially, formally. But ever since the ceasefire, there has been no big escalation from both the sides, from the Houthis and from the Saudis. So there has been a relative calm in Yemen since last April. And that basically provides an opportunity for both the both sides to start talking about making this particular state permanent. And by the way, Omanis have basically mediated as few rounds of talks between Houthis and Saudi-led coalition. So there are multiple channels open for talks. And in particular because of the restoration of diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran, there is a greater possibility that the war will end in Yemen. But these are all speculations. We are not sure whether this will be a reality or not. All right, Abdul and thanks very much for joining us with that update. Since the 1980s, the United States has sought to retain what it calls responsibility for the defense of a massive area in the Pacific Ocean. In fact, it's cofars with three island nations, the Marshall Islands, Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia have allowed it exclusive economic access to those zones. Now it is renegotiating terms with them to extend these arrangements and it may entail a $6.5 billion budget and counting. Aneesh and Peoples Dispatch joins us over video conference on what the cofars really are about. Aneesh, good to have you back on our show. Aneesh, the United States wants to spend $7.1 billion. Why and what are the arrangements it has with these three countries? Yeah, so we need to take a brief look at the history of these three islands and the relationship with the United States. Between since 1945 and until about the late 80s, in the case of Palau until 1994, these three countries remain under a sort of trusty ship that was sanctioned by the United Nations under the United States. Now the trusty ship was basically this thing that existed. It came with the League of Nations by which a bigger country would administer a smaller country in their neighborhood or in the general area and until they can have the capability to self-govern. Most of the cases, it was just basically a sort of UN science and colonial arrangement in many ways because right after the takeover of the trusty ship, these three countries, especially Marshall Islands, was the hotspot for US nuclear experiments and tests. About 46 experiments were conducted in the late 40s and the 50s and including the biggest US nuclear military test ever and so the detonation of the biggest US nuclear bomb and the effects of which are still felt in the region by the inhabitants. Now this is the brief history and it took about until the later part of the 80s for these countries to have at least nominal sovereignty from the United States to have sovereign state of themselves but even then the defense was pretty much administered by the United States in what is now, what as you pointed out is the COFA, the Compact of Free Association with these three countries. The United States wants to continue because this Compact of Free Association is going to end for two of them by this year, later this year for Palau in 2024. So the United States wants to continue this for maybe another 20 years and for that obviously it has to offer something that it had never given or never really bothered to give much attention to in the past several decades since the the COFA came into effect which is Development 8, because many of these countries have been held back developmentally because they remained dependent on the US military industrial complex in the region and obviously you have the long assorted history of nuclear tests so all of these have compounded to a sort of economic and developmental back goodness that these countries are facing so definitely they want the US to send in more aid, more economic help that can actually help them you know depth of further keep up with the pace of the some of their neighbors including Australia and New Zealand and also for the US to continue having any kind of military arrangement with them so they pretty much use the kind of influence that China is having, the growing influence that China is having in the region as a leverage against the US at this point so that really is the reason why this about 6.7 billion of the requested budget is basically what they call as economic aid, a general economic aid of different sort of which these three countries would be in many ways be free to choose and you know do whatever they want to. Anish but the United States has also used this language predatory states and so on and so forth what is that a reference to? So yeah so the US official who's you know mediating this deal right now stated that this budget will be used to counteract predatory and coercive influence in the region but they're obviously referencing to is the growing influence that China is having especially what happened with Solomon Islands recently with the security training deal being signed very recently between China and Solomon Islands after a couple of years after Solomon Islands reverted it stands on you know between China and Taiwan and established diplomatic relations so obviously this is coming at that point in time where Pacific is becoming this sort of a chess board of sorts between superpowers to exert their influence in the case of the United States especially this is something that is very far off their region their hemisphere even and this attempt to exert influence is basically to counter a growing developing power and in that sense for them for their influence to remain in Pacific it has its own colonial and imperialist baggage to begin with so this is something that is a sort of double a hypocrisy or the part of the United States to call you know China's influence as a coercive or predatory but in this case at least this influence was the reason why the US is now kind of ready we are we have not reached a final deal which will only happen by the end of the year there is plenty of more ground to cover but definitely the fact that seven billion dollars is now up for offer is because China has the significantly growing influence in the region and that is the reason why this has happened and these countries have used that to their advantage obviously there are other lot of other factors and issues that need to be covered including reparations and maybe a formal apology that Marshall Islands is calling for for the nuclear test that happened in Bikini at all but all of that we can see maybe in the next coming month there is a certain level of compromise that the United States is ready to do at this point because of the geostrategic location of the region obviously right Anish thanks a lot for joining us the world athletics council has banned transgender women who have gone through male puberty from competing in female world events from 31st March it defended the ban saying it would protect the female category a working group will conduct further research into the eligibility guidelines for transgender persons it has also voted to reduce permitted blood testosterone levels below 2.25 nanomules per liter in intersex athletes sports journalist Siddhant Ani joins us with more detail. Siddhant good to have you back on the show Siddhant can you just tell me what is the basis for world athletics decision it seems sort of like a very exclusionary sort of choice to make and how does it affect the olympics? So one of the it's a very good question that you asked because at this point what the reasoning was to take this decision is quite unclear there was no real sort of pressure or impetus of any kind there was already a ban in place on a male to female transgender athletes above 800 meters so essentially that decision or that previously existing ban was to target specific athletes athletes such as castor Semenya who have been fighting against this exclusionary policy that what used to be called the IAAF and now known as world athletics has been following and what they've done is to kind of the language that they are using you know they're using language like this is being done to preserve the integrity of female competitions female athletics but on the other hand the impact of this is likely to forget about what happens at the olympics at the elite level right because by the time you get to that stage perhaps athletes also have a bit more agency a bit more ability to fight the system to to at least have their voices heard but what this will do is essentially include anyone who has gone through a male puberty and is then transitioning from competing at any kind of organized sports at any level so whether it's in your hometown or your state or your district or your you know even within the country somewhere you will be automatically excluded from all of those competitions anything that comes under any kind of organized athletics so which will also then trickle into school systems university systems creating an overall environment that is absolutely the opposite of the kind of inclusion that people like Sebastian Ko who lead or the leading figures in global sports administration keep talking about using sport as a tool to unite people to you know to promote discourse to promote conversations to promote peace even in the context of now particularly the Russia Ukraine war where again they have used sort of made political decisions but couched in language that indicates that some kind of greater good that they are trying to achieve through through all of this so so very hard to understand the timing of it very hard to figure out what was the motivation to do this except that the world championships are coming up and perhaps they needed to put it in place before them is this also a sort of politically guided decision is that what you're suggesting I think so Pragya because you know it kind of feels very well into conservative narratives around trans people in any sphere of life you know and it is already a space or many of these spaces are already highly exclusive or don't include you know don't allow any representation of that entire community so it also feeds into sort of gender binary narratives that conservative media professionals conservative politicians often sort of stick to very strongly so so yeah it is definitely a political move for sure even if you look at the kind of people who are coming out in support of the kind of net you know media networks that are coming out and supporting this ban you'll find that many of them are conservative and definitely on towards the right of the political spectrum so so so in that sense yeah it is pandering to a core constituency which which you know is I suppose in that sense as as most things are dominated by white western people at administrative levels as well as those who are competing in many of these disciplines you know people like Dutty Chan, Castro, Semenya they have been at the forefront of the the legal battle the long-running legal battle Dutty Chan is a sprinter from India she's done several they've done several interviews where you know they've talked about testosterone not being the only factor and of course it's true that the science is developing on this front but it's not purely a science thing I think it's a lot more to do with discourse and and conversation and and and of course the political will to be inclusive that I think is at the bottom or or a main thing in this entire conversation and somehow that part is being lost in the in the entire conversation around it as well and when it when it when it again is voiced in terms of things like preserving the integrity of the competition and all of that it makes it all that more much more hurtful you know two people who are being excluded and and in this case to an entire community. Right Siddharth and thanks a lot for joining us and that's all we have for you today thank you for watching Daily Debrief do come back to us tomorrow you can visit our website for more people's dispatch stories and watch our regular updates on Facebook Twitter and Instagram