 Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Your weekly movement news roundup. Hi, Yovit. Give the people what they want. It's a 122nd episode. Zoe and Prashant from People's Dispatch. I'm Vijay from Globetrotter. Well, we've known for a long time that the US government spies on, well, just about everybody, including its allies, when Edward Snowden made his release of National Security Agency documents in 2013, he revealed that the US government was spying on, well, who? Well, Angela Merkel of Germany can't think of a closer ally. The Brazilian government also shades of evidence that the US was spying on the United Nations. Earlier, when Chelsea Manning brought the information to WikiLeaks in almost a decade plus now, Chelsea Manning showed that the US government was sniffing around at its allies. Well, now it turns out a 21-year-old Massachusetts National Guardsman by the name of Jack Tejera, who's based at Otis Air Base in Cape Cod. A 21-year-old, most unlikely person, most likely not really politically motivated in any way because Mr. Tejera, age 21, was in a discord server group with 20 of his friends called Thug Shaker Central. I'm told that this is a white supremacist reference to the kind of racist memes that circulate around social media, including in these close discord groups. Apparently Mr. Tejera put a whole bunch of material that came his way. 21 years old tells you a lot about how the United States manages its secret highly confidential materials. Mr. Tejera put this up on that discord server group, largely to brag to his friends. The discord server group of course leaked and the materials then went to a whole bunch of other discord server groups and then to 4chan, to various other outlets. And then finally became a big story when it was revealed, a couple of things that were revealed by the material. Now, it's interesting material. Initially, of course, there was a statement saying that this was leaked by the Russians, that the Russians had hacked the system. Reuters did a story in fact saying conclusively that this is a Russian hack and so on. Turns out, I don't think it's a Russian hack as far as what we know. Although Mr. Tejera is only now being investigated more deeply to see what his ties and links are. But I think this is a young man who got quite interesting materials in front of him on his computer, decided to download them, print some of them out, take pictures of them and then upload it to his discord server group to brag to his friends. It looks like that's the credible story, although we'll never know what exactly happened. Nonetheless, here's what's in the material and this is interesting, hundreds of pages of material. What's in the material? Number one, there are assessments by the US military, by the Pentagon of the state of the war in Ukraine. There's an assessment that this is now going to be a grinding war, a war of attrition that victory seems to be impossible for either side. Which in fact, if you read those documents which have been shared by some news outlets, you read those documents, it looks like a good call for a peace agreement given that the US government itself, which has been really driving hard on this war, seems to have suggested from as early as February a year into the war that nobody seems to be winning. That's actually pretty stunning finding. Secondly, there is a suggestion in the documents that special forces from Britain, dozens of them are operating inside Ukraine. This is a revelation that the UK and perhaps US special forces are fighting inside Ukraine on behalf of the Ukrainian military. I'm surprised there's not more hoopla about this in the United Kingdom. But I suppose they're still a little battered by the fact that Joe Biden is in Ireland and has decided not to come for the king's coronation. Maybe that's been focusing their attention. There's also other important stories in Britain. For instance, they've got their strikes that are going to start up again. So well, we can forgive them for not paying attention to this, an illegal act if there were any. But the third thing is actually quite stunning. Again, more evidence of US spying on its allies. In this case, South Korea. This has created a crisis in South Korea because there's a number of things that the US was apparently looking at. One of them, why the South Koreans were not willing to provide ammunition to the Ukrainian military that they've been holding, which they bought from the US. Those discussions are quite interesting. The government in South Korea is struggling again, like many governments in the global south, struggling between pressure from the United States to come on side over this war. And also its other interests and relations, its own national interests, its links to say China and Russia itself, not willing, not wanting to exacerbate the conflict with the northern half of the peninsula. Recently, there was a missile launch from the DPRK from North Korea, which used for the first time solid state fuel, big advance by the North Koreans to have launched a solid fuel missile. So South Korea is struggling with this contradiction between its own national interest and pressure from the US. It's an emerging and rolling story about these spy leaks. But of course, it reminds us Prashant of that other person who's sitting in prison and who didn't spy on the US, didn't leak information but published documents that had been leaked to him by Chelsea Manning. That's Julian Assange. What's happening with Julian Prashant? April is actually a very significant month because it marks two anniversaries. One every on April 5th is the anniversary of when the collateral murder video was also released, which was in some senses the beginning of all this. And of course, April 11th also marking the anniversary in 2019 for that date when Julian Assange very brutally and very undignified we removed from the Ecuadorian embassy. Because we remember the fact that this happened after the government of Lenin Moreno, which was technically committed to progressive policies when he took power, did this massive about turn and then became a full-fledged ally of the US. But I think the intervening years have really shown that all this talk about democracy, all this talk about freedom of expression is a complete sham when push comes to shove. And in Assange's case, one of the most important things which we I think we keep highlighting is the fact that there is no charge against him, but he's been in jail. He is in Belmarsh prison right now. He's been in jail since 2019, but there is no real charge against him. He is accused of being some kind of a flight risk despite the fact that there is really no evidence to anything of that sort. And that is the reason why he's kept in jail so that they can decide on whether he should be shipped to the United States. And again, important to remember if he's sent is going to be another long trial process. The charges are quite severe. You're looking at probably most of his life spent in jail and in extremely difficult circumstances. During the trial, during the process to deliberate on the extradition, the prisons where he may be kept were discussed. And one of the key points made by his lawyers was that these are actually extremely oppressive prison institutions. There's been a lot of concern about his mental health, the possibility of suicide, for instance. But despite all this, the United States, the United Kingdom, two countries which keep doing this global democracy campaign, organizing summits across the world, going to the global south lecturing countries on democracy. Talking about journalists, for instance, in Russia, there's no shortage of their concern over journalists in Russia. But when it comes to Assange, there's been absolutely no movement. And the Joe Biden administration, for a long time people were like, oh, this is Donald Trump who's responsible for this. But Joe Biden comes to office and has does not change the policy at all. We've discussed various aspects. But I think the key thing, the key important thing is to be sort of, the key thing to remember is that he's definitely a political prisoner. There's no other way of looking at it. The International People's Assembly, for instance, has launched a, is part of and has launched a very significant campaign to highlight some of these aspects. There's a lot of work going on to bring together elected representatives from various parts of the world to push for Assange's release. We know that, what do you call it? Reshita Taleb and other Congress, women in the US have signed a letter to the US Attorney General, a small step in Australia after years and years of not doing anything. There has been some kind of a move towards, you know, by members of parliament to sort of write to the US Attorney General as well. So all these are of course positive science, the fact that even media organizations who had once benefited from Assange's work, then suddenly turned against him when the United States establishment pushed them to, or even now some of them are beginning to say that, hey, this is wrong. You can't put a publisher and a journalist in jail like this under espionage. So they have been, of course, signs of global awareness of global campaign, but I think a key part to remember is that the fundamental prosecution, the most important part of the prosecution has not been stopped and they have not been willing to listen to the calls from across the world. It's an incredible story. It's an ongoing story. We're going to look at this constantly and consistently. One of the main story items that we've been following at People's Dispatch, you've been looking at it. Let's go to where some of this story starts, which is Ecuador, where the Ecuador's embassy that Julian Assange took refuge. Zoe, Ecuador has been in a long-term political crisis. What's going on there? Well, that's exactly right. The Ecuador of Rafael Correa that actually granted Julian Assange asylum way back when is not the Ecuador of today. As you said, it's been going through deep political crisis, of course, marked with this about churn of Lenin Moreno in 2017. Really, since then, this crisis has continued to worsen. In 2021, after Lenin Moreno left office, Guillermo Lasso was elected. It was an upset for the left at the time. Andrés Arauz was running to be the next president of the country, to be kind of the real successor to the citizens revolution. He had worked in the government of Rafael Correa, and it was attempting to be a return to these social policies, the same kind of policies that gave Assange asylum and rejected having U.S. military bases in Ecuador. However, he was defeated. Guillermo Lasso won these elections, conservative, former banker. And I don't think that at the time the people of Ecuador could have prepared themselves for what the government of Guillermo Lasso would mean for them. During his presidency, there has been a significant uptick in, for example, gang violence in the prisons. There have been several extremely brutal prison massacres. These have been fights between rival drug trafficking groups and dozens of people, dozens of people have been killed in these. And there's been human rights organizations have alleged severe mismanagement by prison authorities with the president not taking enough action. So there's been this human rights and humanitarian catastrophe in Ecuador's prisons. There's been an increase in general crime in drug trafficking that's been happening throughout the country. But also there's been proliferating corruption scandals. And Guillermo Lasso himself has found himself smack dab in the middle. Not only is he mentioned in the Pandora papers, but also over the last several months there was a pretty large scale denunciation made by an alternative media outlet that had been investigating a corruption scheme involving the Albanian mafia and involving businessmen and people were very, very close to Guillermo Lasso, accusing them of having essentially siphoned money out of state projects for their own benefit. And having quite explicit links to this Albanian mafia that they believe is quite powerful in the country. So this allegation that came out a couple months back, La Posta is the alternative media outlet that broke this story, has since been investigated in parliamentary spaces and institutional spaces by the attorney general and left wing parliamentarians in Ecuador have opened an impeachment process against Guillermo Lasso alleging that due to his involvement in this corruption scandal he must be impeached taking out of office for all of this mismanagement. The first motion which said will this be tabled in has been passed and now essentially the legislative body has to make the next decision and then it will be debated. So currently in Ecuador we're looking at a situation of deteriorating humanitarian situation, even more political crisis, corruption, and the possibility of actually the president being taken out of office. This is happening of course at the same time the recent midterm elections, the left is actually making a significant comeback. And so I think in this context the left has continued to grow. They've continued to show that while Rafael Correa and many of the people who were in his government are accused of corruption, there's actually hard evidence showing that it is actually the right wing who's committing this corruption and actually quite serious, serious allegation. So it's definitely something to look out for there was a there was an article in LA Times this week about how Ecuador is now one of the US is only solid allies. But this is happening at a time where of course democracy is severely eroding so it's an interesting situation the US is left without solid allies you know they of course have some agreements with countries across the region but ideologically it seems like there was their last chance even if they have it's a completely deteriorating situation. Well it's a very good review of what's been happening in Ecuador an important country in the Andes, of course neighbor to Peru another country in the midst of an ongoing political crisis, you're listening to give the people what they want. We come to you from people's dispatch where you get all this news from Peru from Ecuador from other parts of the world. I'm Vijay from Globetrotter happy to be with you, happy to bring you these stories. I'm going to come back to Zoe again because Zoe, you know there's a lot of Brazil stuff in the news these days. One of the important features of that news reporting is that President Lula has completed 100 days of governance. What has happened in Brazil 100 days of governance Lula in the presidency but the right wing still in the grip of the parliament. Well it's interesting talking about anniversaries it's also been five years since Lula was actually arrested and put in prison in Curitiba. And it's it's crazy to actually think about the fact that the person who's governing Brazil right now had spent over 580 days in prison fighting for his innocence which was finally proven in court by the Supreme Court and now he has won back the complete power of the people in his is leading Brazil trying to overcome the many deep, deep problems that have that are plaguing it because of this right wing rule. And it has been 100 days over 100 days at this point, since he took office on January 1, as we know just a week after he took office on January 8. The invasion of Brasilia happened, extreme chaos, destruction of public property, destruction of historical patrimony of Brazil, such loss and of course a situation attempting to create political destabilization. Lula, very expertly managed this crisis and was able to actually build even greater political unity around his presidency a lot of people who maybe would consider themselves centrist and skeptical of Lula. Of course in this face of the attack against democracy saw themselves kind of coming together to defend the Brazilian state against this, this deep undermining. And as he said during his campaign that his biggest concern in Brazil in the first period of him taking office is really addressing, as I said, these huge issues that Brazil faces hunger, unemployment, deep poverty, inequality, and of course the environmental crisis facing the country. And he has in fact taken serious and concrete measures to address these. There have been important measures passed with regards to extending the economic aid that's given to low income people in the country under his government. And as a program that was actually praised by the United Nations, this program has been reinstituted, it had been severely weakened under Bolsonaro, it had been renamed. It is back as Bolsa Familia expansion in terms of the amount of money that is being given to people and of course the pool of people that are able to receive it. There have been very important coordination being made with for example indigenous organizations under Bolsonaro that one of the largest threats really was the illegal mining expansion and logging into indigenous territory. There was almost, Bolsonaro said that the indigenous people have too much land and there's no reason that it shouldn't be used for the economic development of the country. Lula in his campaign and once he was sworn in, swore that there would be zero deforestation, zero continued logging. He has made good on this promise. There has been significant efforts to fortify the environmental regulations that were torn down under Bolsonaro, under Michel Temer. This is a significant development and one of the primary concerns for indigenous communities that are not only facing the kind of recolonization of their land but also physical extermination. There was a very, very serious case of malnutrition and severe public health crisis in the Yanomuni indigenous community. Lula himself when learning of this crisis, he flew there and committed to sending emergency aid. So I think all of these measures are really a vote of good faith in what he has been doing. Of course, you're about to talk about one of the very, very exciting things which has global implications, which is of course his international agenda during Bolsonaro's presidency. I don't know the exact number but I want to say it was a couple dozen countries maybe that he visited while president and broke a lot of international agreements with Drew Brazil from a lot of important international spaces. This is a serious commitment of Lula to put Brazil back on the world stage. Yeah, quite right. So Lula arrived in China late because he had fallen ill so he had to delay his visit. Met with Xi Jinping. Xi Jinping made a statement saying that Brazil and China share extensive common interests. He reinforced the phrase comprehensive strategic partners that's the level of the ties between the two countries. Interestingly, not much public conversation about Ukraine and the war in Ukraine, much more conversation about trade and development issues. The Brazilians and the Chinese signed a number of agreements 15 in total, including as you mentioned the Amazon, putting up a sixth satellite to monitor deforestation in the Amazon and other troubling developments in the world's largest lung as it were. It's also important to note that Brazil and China have signed an agreement regarding telecommunications including 5G technology. Now the reason I'm putting some emphasis on this is you'll remember that the Trump trade war against China which has been carried forward by President Biden was really about trying to get countries to no longer utilize Chinese 5G and telecommunications tools. The going after of Huawei for instance was very much along the lines of this, that Brazil has said look we want the best technology which is also reasonably priced and that technology is going to come to us from China is interesting. There's still some issues here about the fact that the Brazilians largely export raw materials to China and import finished goods. This was on the table, no public comment on it but we were briefed in advance that this was going to be a point of discussion. Of course this has got to some extent something to do with what Mr Bolsonaro had did to the Brazilian economy. I mean he and previous to him Mr Temer oversaw the deindustrialization of sections of Brazil's economy including I think the sale of M1AIR, the company that made light aircraft. These are the kinds of products that the Brazilians could have sold the Chinese. There's going to be a process for the re-industrialization of Brazil. I think that's very much on the table. I think the highlight of the trip was the speech Mr Lula gave at the inauguration of Dilma Rousseff to the presidency of the New Development Bank. It's an interesting speech. It's instructive at the People's Dispatch website. You can go and read two pieces, one a translation from Brazil de Fatou. The other a very good piece by Marco Fernandez which was written for Globetrotter published at People's Dispatch. Two really good pieces which give you a sense of what's on the table. Now at his speech at the New Development Bank Mr Lula emphasized the question of currency. He talked a great deal about the need for countries to trade in their own currencies and he basically made the point what's wrong with our currencies. Why do we have to trade through the dollar? Well of course that's exactly the point that there was developed a global trust in the dollar and the dollar became the currency of trust between countries. Very difficult to trade in two currencies. For instance to trade in the rupee and the rei, the currency of Brazil. It's very hard because if there is an imbalance in the trade what does Brazil do with all these accumulated rupees if it's not going to buy more things from India. Who is going to take the rupee? Those are pending and pressing issues in the world of currency. I was interested to see however that he put this on the table flatly. It's something that Brazil has also started as it has re-entered trade negotiations with countries in South America including with Argentina. There was not much discussion at the New Development Bank however on things like creating regional commodity chains, building up more investment for infrastructure in parts of the global south that really needed. That was not so much on the table but I'm sure that that is going to be on the agenda of Dilma Rousseff. I interviewed her last year. We talked broadly about development. These are things that matter to her. Eradicating poverty, improving infrastructure and ensuring that industrialization is put on the agenda for countries that are basically exporting raw materials. But keep an eye on all this stuff. Now keeping an eye on points of tension Prashant, people's dispatch is one of the few places where you can find out what's happening in Sudan. Recently troubling news that conflict between the military and the paramilitary is continuing. What's the latest update from Sudan? We're going to have a written update soon. Our colleague Pawan's story is coming up in a few hours. To summarize very quickly, very very tense times in Sudan because like you said, the military, the army which is basically in control, which staged a coup in October 2021, removed the civilian forces, is in conflict with what is called the rapid support forces. Now the RSF is not just any paramilitary organization. It has a very long and brutal history. We have covered that often on people's dispatch. Its earliest sections were involved in the genocide in Darfur, for instance. It has a huge involvement in those provinces even still. There is a lot of connection between it and commercial activities, including the various kinds of smuggling. For instance, the violence that is going on in this region is attributed to the struggle for resources in which the RSF plays an important part. Now, it's important to remember that the army and the RSF together were part of the coup in October 2021, which overthrew the very fledgling civilian government. And ever since after a while, talks continued to restore some form of civilian government largely due to international pressure. Now again, very important to remember that these talks were opposed by the left and radical sections for them has very limited and limiting in some senses, that they would just lead to the restoration of the old system with some civilian faces instead of military faces. But nonetheless, those discussions have continued and there was an announcement in December that there would be a formal agreement that would be signed between the civilian sections, the centrist parties and the military junta. Now what has happened in the meanwhile is that divisions between the military and the RSF have escalated considerably. Now we are seeing a situation where both sections, especially the RSF, are deploying in Khartoum in other places without the permission and clearance of the military. And this is what is really alarming a lot of people. Now there have been statements from all sides saying that, you know, we want to continue discussions, we want to continue negotiations. But the divide between the army led by Abdul Fateh Al Burhan and the RSF led by the general called Hemeti, Mohammad Hamdan Tagalo are very much evident right now. It doesn't help that Burhan is seen as someone close to Egypt for instance, whereas the RSF is supported very strongly by the UAE and even Saudi Arabia. So also regional dynamics kind of playing a part in here. So what everyone is worried about is the possibility of a firefight to shoot out taking place, which could, you know, really derail things as it stands, even the very fragile moves towards some kind of a settlement. It's interesting that there are divisions even in the civilian sections. We'll be writing about that as well. But nonetheless, there is some amount of openness and communication. But everyone is right now very concerned about the possibility of this breaking out. The leftist, the Sudanese Communist Party, the various resistance committees have always been saying that there should be no collaboration with the military junta, no compromise with the military junta. They've been calling for a much more larger political process, a different kind of electoral system, maybe a political strike even. So that's a very different agenda that they're pushing from the ground against this very limited process. But even this very limited process kind of seems in threat because of the possibility that a full-fledged firefight might break out. So very difficult, like we often say, very difficult times for people in Sudan. I think a lot of baited but there have been some positive statements regarding settling issues. So I think everyone is hoping that there is, you know, the agreement has not yet been signed. It was supposed to be signed last week or something. But at least people are hoping that a full-fledged conflict does not break out. Well, certainly nobody wants to see that Sudan has been through enough. You've been listening to give the people what they want brought to you by people's dispatch where you're going to read a story from Pawan Kulkarni about the crisis in Sudan. There's so many other things to read, including stories about Brazil, stories about Palestine and so on. Make sure to go and have a look. We come to you every week. We want to get your selfies. We want to get, you know, the feeling that you're watching the show. I want to end today by just wishing Happy New Year to our friends and viewers in Nepal and in Tamil Nadu. New Year's Eve starts at different times of the year for different people, friends. So Happy New Year to those in Nepal and Tamil Nadu. Give the people what they want every Friday. See you next week.