 Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Your weekly movement news roundup. You're with Give the People What They Want brought to you from People's Dispatch. That's Zoe and Prashant. I'm Vijay from Globetrotter. Great to be back with you. 127th show, the 60th anniversary of Cuba's medical missions abroad. Cuba has sent doctors to 165 countries. That's almost all the countries in the world. Over 600,000 medical personnel have been travelling the world. The first medical mission was to Algeria in 1963. So salute to the Cuban Medical Brigade. Great job, guys. You're really helping make the world a better place. Not so the government in Ecuador. Guillermo Lasso. Not really trying to make the world a better place or even a better place for Ecuadorian people. Zoe, what's been happening in President Lasso's Ecuador? Well, a very interesting turn of events last week. Guillermo Lasso applied and implemented the cross-death measure, which is a very dramatic name and actually is a quite dramatic measure to implement. It essentially dissolves the parliament, calls for early elections and allows him to rule by decree for the next several months. And why did he do this? Well, he was facing an impeachment motion and this was not a law fair case, a politically motivated case really against him. It was actually specifically about his involvement in different corruption schemes in the country. His implication in a drug trafficking network run by his brother-in-law. So many serious, serious allegations on the table and he was sensing that the opposition was getting strength. People were believing more and more of these accusations against him. And in an interview about I think a week and a half before this impeachment measure was about to take place, he said, I will not allow this to go forward. If it comes to it, I'll implement the cross-death measure. And that's what he did. And so now essentially he has plunged Ecuador into an even deeper crisis. And it's worth noting that under the presidency of Lenin Moreno, his predecessor, and during just the two years that he's been in office, Ecuador, which was formerly a quite stable country with economic growth, et cetera, has really gotten to a very serious situation. It is now one of the countries that has the highest rates of immigration, the second nationality that's crossing the Darien Gap, the very perilous crossing from Colombia to Panama to migrate north to the United States. Huge increase in my immigration and an even bigger increase in organized crime in homicides. We've reported a lot of people's dispatch about the prison massacres that have taken place. Horrific incidents where dozens of people have been killed inside the Ecuador's prisons. Guillermo Lasso has really not done enough to address this. In all of these cases, with all of these phenomenons with the rising crime with these massacres, his excuse is, oh, well, it's because Ecuador is between these drug-producing countries. What can we do? We're trying to address it. And then, of course, when the investigation by an alternative media outlet La Bosta comes out, connecting him to drug trafficking in the country, people, of course, are less than happy. So as of now, he's going to call. There will be new elections held. And it's important to say that in the last, in the local elections, which took place a couple of months ago, the left-wing opposition under this umbrella of the Citizens' Revolution led by Rafael Correa. Of course, he's not in the country right now, but this political tradition started with his presidency, this movement, which saw the rewriting of the Constitution, amongst other things. This is the movement that has actually really been gaining strength of the mayor's office in Quito, is now run by Cabal Munoz, who's also from the Citizens' Revolution. So people are expecting that if and when, really when these elections happen, that it's likely that the opposition, the left-wing opposition may actually come back into power. And this would be an interesting development in a country that's had six years of neoliberal destruction, IMF loans, a real backwards turn from the policies that had been implemented before. So extremely interesting events in Ecuador. The cross-death has set in a new phase of what's happening in the country in this political crisis. And of course, we'll be following it at People's Dispatch. Very good stories at People's Dispatch on this already and coming up about Ecuador. We started the show talking about the 60th anniversary of the Cuban Medical Brigades, 1963. That's a banner year, Prashant. That same year is the year of the creation of African Unity, as it were, the organization of African Unity. 60 years in, tell us what we should have thought about yesterday during Africa Liberation Day. Right. So the day, like you said, is Mark's African Liberation Day. When the OAS was founded in 1963, that was actually a very landmark moment. I became independent in 1958. There was this wave of independent struggles going on across the continent. And a number of countries within that very short period from 1958 to 1963, there was this wave of 32 countries. I became independent. And all these countries came together at a very vital moment realizing that on the one hand, they had succeeded at one level in fighting off their colonial oppressors by throwing off the colonial yoke. But on the other hand, the threat of colonialism remained nonetheless in new forms, that while some of the colonial powers might have left the continent, not all of them, some of them might have left the continent, their impact continued in a number of ways, both through the presence of their military forces, through the kind of private contractors, mercenaries they engaged, the attempts they made to overthrow governments, and through the kind of financial policies that they were imposing on the newly independent countries, which really prevented any, you know, sustainable or alternative way of growth. So that was the context in which this organization was founded in 1963, and it was a very important moment. And the decades since have been fraught with conflict, there's no other way to say it. On the one hand, of course, we saw that this, and we've talked about it off another show, the OAUs founding in 1963 was one of those moments where there was an attempt to sort of build from the global south, a different kind of global architecture. We had a non-aligned movement at that time, you know, coming up around the same time as well. They were in the lot of the UN bodies, they were attempts by countries of the global south to work together to create a different vision in every aspect of life, not just in governance, but also the economy, but in culture, in media, in all these spaces. But on the other hand, the level of colonial and neo-colonial oppression continued through all these decades as well, some of the worst examples were, of course, the brutal coups, the killing of progressive leaders such as Patrice Ramumba, the fact that the Krumah himself was overthrown. And this was something that continued through the years and after the decades in Africa. So today, yesterday movements across the continent gathered together in various parts. We carried a report by our correspondent, detailing one such event which was held in Pan-African television where a panel of experts, members of popular movements talked about some of these issues, the fact that the struggle is not at all over, the fact that the extraction of resources, the use of Africa as just a site for extracting resources, both mineral and human resources, let's be clear, continues to this day. And on the other hand, there is a skewed set of policies which are imposed in African countries which really prevent any sustainable development. We have countries like Ghana, we have countries like Zambia, we are battling IMF loans. There is no other way of describing it which are imposed in very oppressive conditions. The economy is being destroyed, no scope for increasing productive activities. We have countries like South Africa, for instance, struggling with load shedding of various forms, all of which is connected to this kind of economic systems, austerity policies and all that. So I think for movements across Africa, African Liberation Day is a moment to sort of take stock, understand the interconnected nature of their struggles because it's not one country's struggle, but the struggles that are of an entire continent and also the fact that these are the struggles of today are connected to the struggles of the past. It's not that the legacy of the past that still continues, the legacy of hundreds of years of colonialism, they're still battling it in many parts of the continent. In the case of places like western Sahara, in some other places where, of course, there are independent governments, but they are still battling various forms of colonialism. So a very important day, I think it's one of those days which does not get enough, after the global media does not get enough attention. The Organization of African Unity itself is renamed as the African Union. The day's significance has officially kind of been, I wouldn't say entirely erased, but it's been kind of sidelined. But I think that's why for people's movements, for organizations, this day continues to be of such importance because it is a reminder, I think, of that interconnected nature of struggles both geographically and over time. Well, Prashant, it's the 60th anniversary of the Organization of African Union, now the African Union, but it's the 30th anniversary of the windowic declaration on media in Africa. And what you just said about how there's really a lack of coverage about stories from the African continent applies indeed to Africa Liberation Day a day that should be covered by the world's media, but simply is not. Well, another interesting story, not much covered. I'm glad I went on the hunt for Globetrotter and the stories can be found at the People's Dispatch page. It starts with an interesting Monday meeting conducted by Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway. Now, I had the distinct pleasure as a journalist to spend over two hours watching the morning meeting online where Mr. Buffett, at his age, extraordinarily without notes, speaks for over two hours, takes questions from shareholders and so on. In this meeting, there was an interesting moment where Mr. Buffett talked about the US-imposed war on China and particularly crosshairs on Taiwan. Mr. Buffett once said, look, this is not good for anybody on the planet. This sort of conflict needs to be negotiated downwards. Nobody can win this. He was pretty clear with his anxiety about the nature of the, let's call it New Cold War being pushed against China. I found that interesting. The statement made by Mr. Buffett. Well, the statement was made by Mr. Buffett in the context of Berkshire Hathaway pulling out of a $4 billion stake that it had made in a semiconductor plant based in Taiwan. In fact, it's not a semiconductor plant. It's a multinational semiconductor company. Most of whose plants are in Taiwan, that's TSMC. It's not just a Taiwanese company. TSMC has plants around the world, including two of them being built in Arizona in the United States. Well, Berkshire Hathaway pulled out of this investment. That was interesting, but TSMC at the same time, very well aware that the US campaign against China has had a net negative impact on businesses in Taiwan. A lot of investment has been fleeing from Taiwan, worried that a conflict is coming, and it was simply not a good idea to either continue with investments in Taiwan or to make new investments in Taiwan. This is, of course, troubled the Taiwanese administration because the Taiwanese administration has to balance its close ties to the United States government with the sense that any more warmongering is going to lead to capital flight from Taiwan, which will be catastrophic and has already been pretty hard-hitting for the Taiwanese economy. Then you got some strange characters, Seth Moulton, congressman from Massachusetts and Robert O'Brien, who was Donald Trump's national security advisor. Both O'Brien and Moulton made bizarre comments in webinars available, all of them on YouTube, where Mr. O'Brien and Seth Moulton both said that, look, the United States is not going to let the TSMC factories in Taiwan remain intact if there's unification with China and the US would even go so far as to blow up the factories. O'Brien went on this long tear about scorched earth tactics and how even Vichy France lost its hardware because the Allies didn't want to give that hardware to the Nazis when the Nazis took France. So this was dismissed by parts of the media saying, well, Seth Moulton was miscoted. I don't think he was. In fact, Michelle Floteroi, who was part of the Trump administration, was on that same panel, and she interrupted Mr. Moulton and said, listen, what you're talking about is going to have $2 trillion damage to the world economy. So better grow up, Seth. I don't think he was miscoted. O'Brien also was not miscoted because the Army War College of the United States has actually a study which talks about the importance of going and blowing up the plant in case that needed to be done. Extraordinary language. But Berkshire Hathaway makes a final point that if they're going to pull out of Taiwan, which they have now, they might make new investments to the semiconductor industry in Japan. Interesting. It's not going to benefit the United States necessarily. Japan and South Korea, they're in at the threshold of being able to benefit from this situation. Tough story. As usual, we'll be looking at this even more. You'll give the people what they want brought to you from people's dispatch. That's Zoe and Prashant. I'm Vijay from Globetrotter. We've got another 15 minutes of great stories for you. We're going to start off with some extraordinary events taking place in Spain. What would have thought Spain, part of Europe, very advanced countries, enlightenment and so on. What's this about racism in Spain, Zoe? Well, last Sunday during a football match, there were extremely racist attacks against a Brazilian football player, Vinicius Jr. And first football fans who watched the game a lot who have been in stadiums, attacks like these are unfortunately nothing new. Especially in Europe, racist comments, racist chants, misogynists, all sorts of horrific chants are used against players. But it's relentless. And so Vinicius Jr., who's a 22-year-old football player from Brazil, he's one of the star players on Real Madrid, had enough. And he finally, he spoke out on his social media pages about this racist abuse and attacks. He was also taken out of the game. He called out the fans in the middle of the match. I mean, extremely courageous, given the thousands of people who are out there chanting, saying horrific things. He calls them out on social media and it really sparks this debate and this feud within Spanish football. The president of La Liga, who's also a member of the Vox Party, Far Right Party, responds to him saying, how can you say this? Saying that the whole league is racist is so unfair. He even pulled up an old video of Vinicius saying, well, actually the racism has gotten a bit better. Horrible things, especially coming from this far right person with so much power to actually impact the policies and actually try to make these stadiums a safer place for these football players who are putting their life on the line. Every single day going to these stadiums, facing up this abuse, the Governor of Rula da Silva rallied behind Vinicius as did many football players across the world. So it was a quite interesting week, especially given the protests that are ongoing in India with the wrestlers. We're really seeing athletes actually challenging these systems of power, which is such an interesting development and so important they're often seen as sort of these apolitical subjects that kind of just entertain us, but really they are, of course, political subjects. But on the point of Brazil, and just to add quickly, because it's been a crazy week in Brazil, I feel like I'm constantly listening to podcasts, trying to follow the news, but still unable to keep up this week alone, several different key measures and kind of debates occurred in parliament, between the parliament and the executive and the Supreme Court. On one hand, the Commission of Parliamentary Inquiry against the landless workers movement began essentially a circus, as Joao Pedro said, he would say a right-wing circus just to use to attack the movement to say extremely polemic statements about that they're terrorists, that they're criminals, that they invade lands, things which the movement has time and time again proved are not true. An invasion is one thing, a land occupation is another. We've tried to lay this out in different posts on social media as well, because a lot of fake news is being used to justify this attack on the landless workers movement of Brazil, which is one of the largest movements in the country and really in the continent, the largest producer of organic rice in the region as well. So very, very important to stay tuned to this Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry. Members of the MST will also be testifying in this, a crucial development there. Also the investigation about the acts on January 8th in the capital in Brasilia, where Bolsonaro supporters invaded the different buildings, destroyed the President's Palace, destroyed elements of the Congress, lots of art destroyed, historical artifacts, that's going on. A lot of investigation into who financed these attacks, who participated, what are the political forces operating behind this. And members of the MST have pointed out often that actually some of the people who are implicated in January 8th are the same people who are trying to take forward this investigation against the MST. And then the last thing which I'll mention is that there's also a serious attack against Indigenous people and the environment in Brazil. Right-wingers in the Congress have really coordinated attack. They're pushing for a vote on a legislation which would say that any territory which is historically Indigenous but if it was not occupied by Indigenous people in 1988 it does not count as Indigenous land. So these are crucial developments, very, very important to stay tuned. Brazil is an enormous country and really marks the current in a lot of ways for the region. So we'll be staying tuned on that. You started with the story of sports. It's important to highlight Indian wrestlers protesting against sexual harassment in Delhi. Brave sports people, they're not going to take it anymore, they say. Not going to take it anymore. The Arab League meeting. Well, Syria's back Prashant. Surprise. Yeah. I mean, if you've been following developments for the past three or four months, not a surprise so much, but I think the sheer visual aspect of it, nonetheless, was quite remarkable. Bashar al-Assad and Mohamed bin Salman greeting each other like nothing had happened. You know, considering the fact that even until recently, Saudi Arabia was the forefront of trying to overthrow the Bashar al-Assad government. So quite drastic changes in recent times. They've been building up like I said. Over the years, following the region, you get a sense that it's been building up, but still Nandala is very drastic development. So I think it's a very unique moment because Syria was, of course, re-admitted, but this also comes as part of a longer process that's taking place. We talked about how Iran and Saudi Arabia have re-established diplomatic ties. I believe Nandani and ambassador has also been announced as well. We know that their negotiations in Yemen have kind of picked up since that decision took place. The Arab League has called for a stable government to be formed in Lebanon. And there's been some development there also. There seems to be a small step towards breaking the deadlock, towards finding a presidential candidate who can then, you know, swear in the new government that is to be formed. So all over the place, it does look like there is, of course, this does not mean that everything is hunky-dory, so to speak. Everyone has forgotten their old rivalries. Obviously, everyone, all the countries concerned are very, but the fact nonetheless that they are in a position of where they're talking itself is a very positive sign. And I think this is a process that has picked up steam, picked up momentum over the past couple of years, but also the past few months. And I think this poses a very difficult question to the United States because I believe as one of the commentators I was reading said that the question here is not who's involved with the picture and the answer to that is the United States. And this is the region where the US has for long been the most dominant power. So, of course, they tried sending allies, they tried giving all kinds of messages to prevent this process, but it's not really happened. And so, very interesting times ahead for the region. It remains to be seen and, of course, so many factors contributing to it. We know that oil prices played a part in the fact that these countries have been working closely with Russia. We do know that sanctions may have worried many of the countries, the sanctions that were imposed on Russia may have worried many countries because if a big economy like Russia could be so completely sanctioned, who's to say that tomorrow it couldn't be Saudi Arabia or any other country in the West Asia region. So, I think all these factors together have made countries far more cautious of the positions they want to take. And, of course, this also leads a very important question about Israel as well, its own domestic chaos. And considering that Israel and the United States had pursued a very alternative agenda for the region, which was the Abraham Accords, which was this idea that Israel and the friends of the U.S. together would sort of form this alliance against Iran and its trends and everything was being pitched as this battle of contesting ideologies and all that kind of stuff. And that process seems to have kind of really ground to a halt, which is, I think, a very positive development, because that process was inherently a very violent one, a conflicted one, talked about it was constantly the threat of war looms because of that process, the Israel and U.S. threat process. So the fact that all rivals are sitting together at the table, they're shaking hands, they're talking, they may be beginning to see if some issues can be resolved is a very positive step. Now, I think we have to be clear that there are this could always be derailed, we never know what are the factors to bring obstacles to this process, but nonetheless that it's happening itself is a very positive development, I think in the maybe the last decade, it's one of the more positive developments in the whole region since Libya and Syria were destroyed, that dynamic has continued and now there's a counter process that is taking place, which is, I think, a very welcome news. So, unusually, so I think usually Arab League summits are not moments where you sort of sit and think, that's not a bad thing that's not a bad thing considering the nature of the participants, but I think this time it's a positive development. You may remember Prashant that in the old days, when Gaddafi was at the Arab League meetings, they were very exciting because Gaddafi would turn to, let's say, the King of Saudi Arabia and say, you're the creation of the British and then he turned to the Emir of Qatar and said, you're a dog of the United States. I mean, Gaddafi used to really make those summits into a circus. And the organization of African Union summits as well, that those also disintegrated after him. That's true. Gaddafi played a real role in well giving reporters things to write about when it comes to summits. Wait a minute, I'm going to talk about another summit. That's the G7 summit, which was held in Hiroshima. Interesting choice for the G7, one of its members being Japan to host the meeting at Hiroshima, which is the site of the first nuclear attack on a civilian setting. Before that nuclear bombs had been dropped in test sites in the South Sea Islands, in the eastern, the western southwestern part of the United States had catastrophic environmental impact in the South Sea Islands. It did impact the lives of people who suffered from long-term damage and so on. But here Hiroshima, the first place where a bomb was dropped on a civilian target city of 350,000 people, lots of people lost their lives. Interesting choice for the G7. Well, the G7 came to Hiroshima with the expectation that they would have a very strong and united statement against China. There was talk of having platforms for monitoring economic coercion and this, that and the other. As it turned out, there were differences in the G7. Much of this hasn't been properly reported. We're going to get leaks coming soon. You know, we'll hear from the French and perhaps even the Italians about why they were not so keen on a single-minded approach towards China. When you look at the final statement, in fact, the first sentence which I really want to read, the first sentence of the section on China is quite extraordinary. And here's the first sentence, the G7 writes, we recognize the importance of engaging candidly with and expressing our concerns directly to China. I mean, I, in all my years of covering events such as the G7 reading their statements, I've never seen such an apologetic statement, you know, where they are coming out and saying, look, listen forgive us a little bit, but we're going to candidly speak now to you, China. You know, I've never heard this. Normally they just lay in, for instance, the second line also says, we acknowledge the need to work together with China. I mean, this seems to me an enormous walk back from the position the United States wanted when it arrived in Hiroshima that the very first sentence says, we want to speak candidly and then the next sentence of the final communication says we acknowledge the need to work together with China on what? On global challenges, areas of common interest, climate change biodiversity, global health security, gender equality. Very interesting. This suggests to me that the European Commissions had Ursula van der Leyen her statements made, public statements made in in Hiroshima were revealing. I mean, she said these public remarks that look, we have problems with the economic coercion of the United States. She didn't say this directly. She said that, well, US subsidies are a problem, you know, including industrial subsidies and so on. In other words, there is something happening in the House of Hamlet. You know, there are mysterious things going on there. There are disputes inside the G7. They are not as united as one thought around China and they are having to acknowledge that there are various important areas of common concern with which they have to deal and China has to be back on the table with them. Very interesting development. I don't think the G7 should be walking out of Hiroshima or rather flying out of Hiroshima in the hundreds of very small planes that they come in, which are enormous carbon polluters. They shouldn't be flying out of Hiroshima with a sense of resolve. Let's go back to the Cold War against China. In fact, I see this as a strategic walk back. That's the G7 summit. You've got Bashar al-Assad at the Arab League summit. You've got a walk back at the G7 summit and you have the, you know, liberation day in Africa. Very interesting developments around the world. You get to hear about all of them and give the people what they want to you by people's dispatch. That's Prashant and Zoe, new story coming up there on the 60th anniversary of the Cuban medical professionals. Go and read it. I'm Vijay from Globetrotter. See you next week.