 It's the last show from us in July 2021. You all will give the people what they want coming to you every Friday. Today is the 30th of July from People's Dispatch, now three years old with Prashant and Zoe. Hi Prashant, hi Zoe. Hi Vijay. Vijay from Globetrotter. We've got a great lineup of stories for this half an hour. Of course the Olympics are on and we're watching the Olympics as everybody is. I'm just waiting for track and field. My favorite events, 1500 meters, 5000 and 10000, but there's a COVID outbreak. So let's see what happens, keeping an eye on that. I'm looking forward to particularly 5000 and 10000, the Ethiopian and Kenyan women. Hope they continue their sweeps. We're going to however start our show in Peru. Pedro Castillo, now the new president of Peru, the great country of the Andes, beginning to marshal a cabinet, a government, a direction forward for Peru after many years of very, very disturbing corruption and political paralysis. Zoe, what's been happening in Pedro Castillo's hands? Well, on Wednesday, July 28th, as many of us would have seen, it was the swearing in ceremony of Pedro Castillo. We have a pretty long extensive report on people's dispatch. I recommend people check it out. He gave an amazing speech, outlining not only what his plans are concretely for his government, in terms of granting access to higher education to all people, favoring vulnerable communities, but also kind of rejecting centuries of colonialism, neocolonialism. He has renounced his president's salary. He's taken a lot of not only symbolic, but concrete measures already as president to kind of show that he's breaking with the status quo of Peruvian politicians who have been mired in corruption, who have been turning over Peruvian sovereignty to foreign investors. In the past couple of days, this cabinet has been shaping up, which has given a lot of interesting information to look at, to see kind of what way is this government going to be leaning. A lot of people were thinking, well, after the months of instability, who knows? Is it going to be as strong, as leftist, as progressive leaning, as it seemed like he might be during the campaign? What we've seen so far is that, yes, Pedro Castillo is proposing, and his cabinet is quite progressive. His prime minister that he's named is Guido Beidou, who's from his party, the Free Peru Party. He's a Marxist-Leninist, proud leftist, and has that leaning. He's also named Anahi Durand, who's from the Free Peru Party, who is a party that has an alliance with the New Peru Party, which has an alliance with Free Peru Party. They also were running for elections in the first round. Anahi is a feminist activist. She's going to be part of the Minister of Women and Vulnerable Populations. So I think what we're seeing is that, yes, indeed, this new presidency in Peru is going to be a progressive one. They've already started making agreements and discussions with Bolivia, with Venezuela. There's talks underway to make sure that the vaccination process in Peru continues and speeds up that people are able to get vaccinated, that they're going to be protected from this latest COVID outbreak, which we know Peru has been one of the most affected countries, just because of the complete disarray and incapacity of the government to really handle it. So from what we're seeing so far, it's been a progressive leaning cabinet showing a strong showing from the Free Peru Party. He's not going to be bowing to the pressures of the right. And I think it will be really interesting to really stay tuned and see what happens in the coming days and weeks and months. It's something to look for because we're looking forward to understanding what a government such as led by Pedro Castillo is capable of doing in the middle of this crisis, a left-leaning government. Meanwhile, of course, north of Peru, north of the Caribbean, in Washington DC, a 33-year-old man found himself in a very perilous situation. He decided that there was something that was not his to give, which was human life. And he did something quite important for all of us reporters. This is Prashant, the repeat almost of the Julian Assange story, one story like this after the other. What is the story, in fact, of Daniel Hale? Right, Vijay. It's an important story for a variety of reasons, starting from the fact that it has to do with drone warfare. And drone warfare is actually today one of the most, in some senses, mysterious and hidden kind of operations that are being done. There's very little information about how it happens. It's all shrouded in mystery. There is a distance that the people operating these drones get when, for instance, they are actually killing people, which changes the nature of the operation entirely. It's a very different kind of war that is being reached. And it's going on in Afghanistan, it's going on in Pakistan, it's going on in Yemen. And obviously, with the kind of intelligence that would be available, it's obvious that a lot of the casualties are not going to be civilians. And I think what Daniel Hale did a few years ago was release documents which actually concretely proved that fact. I mean, one of the most important documents being the fact that in a five-month stretch, 90% of targets of drone operations in Afghanistan were not the intended targets. A very, very important revelation because it shows the extent to which, because the news always comes out. There was a drone attack, so many people were killed, and it's almost, in some senses, we've become desensitized to that news because it's not like some of the other war news or military news that comes out. So what Daniel Hale did was to reveal a lot of documents which exposed that. He revealed documents which exposed the nature of US surveillance, citizens on watchlists. He talked about how targets are selected. All these documents were released. He's admitted to that. What is really shocking is the fact that despite the very obvious public interest involved in these revelations, despite the fact that not only Americans, but people across the world deserve to know this information about how their lives are at risk, especially in these conflict areas. The US administration, the prosecution, they went after him under the Espionage Act, the usual target, the usual method by which whistleblowers are targeted. Assange has the same charges against him. And the kind of allegations they leveled against him were observed. He was accused of megalomania. He was accused of self-aggrandizement. They said that he wanted to be a journalist. That's why he released this information. And they went to the extent to saying that, oh, this is the usual argument, of course, that this was useful for the enemies of the United States. And I think in his trial, an intelligence officer testified that if it was useful, various agencies would not have put it out there. As in, say, IES, for instance, would not have released this information. So what we have basically seen is that there is information which was definitely in the public interest. Nonetheless, Daniel Hale sentenced to 45 months in prison. The prosecution pushing very hard to put him in jail for over 10 years for revealing this kind of information. And I think it's a huge, this is one of those clear signals about what an administration does, because the Joe Biden administration clearly had a chance to not take this forward. It clearly had a chance to not take the prosecution against Assange forward. And it has chosen to do so. So despite all they say about standing with people across the world and democracy and all those slogans they give, the fact is when it comes to their own backyard, when it comes to their own country, any journalist, any listen blower who dares to point out an inconvenient fact faces the threat of this kind of prison. And Daniel Hale also, it is very clearly recorded that he has mental health issues. Nonetheless, sentenced to 45 months in prison for talking for revealing information which the world deserves to know. So I think there are no two doubts about that. And it's highly unfortunate. Movements have mobilized against it. And at least one good thing is that the length of the sentence was not what the prosecution demanded. But nonetheless, I think this is sign of this continuing war on whistleblowers, which is not likely to end anytime soon. It's important to mention he's 33 years old. And he is a former US intelligence analyst. He revealed this information because he felt it went against everything he stood for. And everything he felt his country stood for. These are people that one celebrates because when they see something ugly, they decide that it's in the public interest. And I think it's interesting what you say, Prashant, about courts not agreeing with them or coming in on the side of what is the public interest. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been in India. He made a very strong statement about the Narendra Modi governments, very poor record on human rights. Every word that Blinken said is true. In fact, he referenced the March statement made by the US Department of State, its report on human rights around the world, where they very sharply pulled up the Indian government, including talking about suppression of the press, which is important to point out that the Indian government has gone after the press very strongly and mischievously, if I might use that word. They also directly talked about the use of libel laws to arrest people who are criticizing the government and other authorities on social media. Well, that's all true. And in fact, the Modi government stands charged and guilty of much of what Blinken said. Of course, Blinken could have also pointed out that in his own homeland, they're going after a whistleblower who stood in the public interest. These are so-called the large democracies or the old democracies that have a very fragile hold on the democratic spirit, I must say. This is give the people what they want coming to you every Friday. I'm Vijay from Globe Trotter. You've been listening to Prashant and Zoe from People's Dispatch, this peoplesdispatch.org. Terrific place to get your news. I hope you've joined us and are listening. I spent the last week reading the new IMF report. This is the World Economic Outlook report. Also went and read the blog post from the chief economist of IMF, Gayatri Gopinath, a very fine piece of writing. The report is interesting because it goes through the normal things that you'd expect. It worries correctly about disruptions in the supply chain. This is particularly disruptions in intermediate goods, which will hit eventually economies like Germany and so on, which rely on intermediate goods for their final production of high tech and so on. So they worry about the decline of intermediate goods. They worry about supply chain disruptions, the increased cost of freight. Let me put it to you in this way. Toy prices have gone up, for instance. Mattel and so on have reported high toy prices. This is for two reasons. One is container ships, containers on ships are now four or five times the price, sometimes more that they were before the pandemic. And secondly, the pellets used to make plastic goods prices that have skyrocketed. These are the little pellets that you saw falling out of the ship that ran aground off the coast of Sri Lanka. The price of these pellets has gone up. So inflation is a serious issue that the IMF looked at. But the IMF cautioned that the problem of inflation is most likely a short-term problem. It might get taken care of eventually as supply chains come back into proper order as shipping picks up again and the rates come down. There may be some price gouging by shipping companies and so on. But they feel a short-term issue. In fact, we got a sense of that when the US Federal Reserve just this week decided not to change their mark for interest rates. They decided not to lift interest rates. Friends, you lift interest rates to pull money back into the banks to decrease money supply. You decrease money supply, you decrease inflationary pressures. That's the basic point. The Federal Reserve doesn't feel like the inflationary pressures are sufficient for it to increase the interest rates. They are more worried always in the value of money, I should say. This is a question for the hardcore economists to look at. But nonetheless, the IMF said inflation, yes, it's a concern. It's not the fundamental issue. And here we go then, friends. What's the fundamental issue? I found this to be interesting. The report said that the principle front line is the vaccine disparity. What we on this show and other places have called vaccine apathy. The principle issue is the vaccine disparity. The report said that 40% of the people in the advanced countries, Europe, North America and Japan and so on, 40% of the people in these countries have been vaccinated. It was an average. It's higher in some places, 63%. I believe in the United States and so on. 40% vaccinated in advanced industrial countries. In the poorer nations, which includes countries like India, although it's an emergent economy, the vaccination rate on average is 11%. This is an enormous disparity. You're nowhere near herd immunity or whatever the phrase is that epidemiologists use. So it was quite right for the IMF chief economist not to write her blog, which is very significant. When the IMF releases the World Economic Outlook, the chief economist blog post picks up the most significant issue in that report. She did not write about inflation, friends. That's what I want to point out. That's why I want to highlight this. She didn't say that the most important issue before the world economy right now, she didn't say the most important issue is inflation. That's the line that some periodicals are taking, including the financial time. She said the most important issue is vaccine apartheid, what we call vaccine apartheid. But what they call the principle frontline, which is vaccine disparity. Whether you call it apartheid or disparity, you're talking about the same thing. Got to deal with this vaccine problem. Blinken was in India. He said we're going to send a lot of vaccines. But again, the question of releasing patents not on the table for the United States government. The question of trying to move an agenda for mass funding of the various public vaccine projects not available, even though the IMF said it will put billions of dollars into vaccination, it's just not enough. This was the World Economic Report. It's significant that it was about vaccines and not inflation. Now you're listening to give the people what they want, your favorite show every Friday, a romp, a journey around the world, which begins with the Olympics and then gets to the IMF. And now we're going to move to Ghana, where Prasanthi is going to give us a report about new political developments coming out of this West African country. One of the first countries on the African continent to win its independence in 1957 under the leadership of Kwame Nkrumah. Prasanthi, what's happening in that delightful country of Ghana? Interesting, you mentioned Nkrumah, Vijay, because the influence of Nkrumah is there across the continent, across Asia. He's been an icon for many people who grew up during the 70s and 80s, even those now who study history. But the interesting thing, of course, is that Nkrumah is in the forefront of a particular understanding of pan-Africanism, of socialism, and a lot of this thinking influenced people across the continent. It led to movements, it led to struggles, and it led to a phase where imperialism and the policies of the United States were really challenged in the continent for a long time. There was a phase of decline after that, where the agenda of the United States and the West began to triumph for a long time. And a lot of this was done through the instruments of finance, through the Washington Consensus Institutions, the World Bank and the IMF. Ghana has no exception. For decades now, these policies have completely governed how Ghana's economy works, how Ghana's people live, and so on. But nonetheless, there's been a very powerful socialist pushback. In 1993, an organization called the Socialist Forum of Ghana was set up. And today marks the day when it will transition to the socialist movement of Ghana. And people might ask, okay, it's a new organization in one country. Why is it so important? On the other hand, I think what weird people's dispatch have done and keep trying to do along with you is to track some of these changes and what they mean for the understanding of a country, for the understanding of a continent. So socialist movement of Ghana, marking a fresh, its foundation, its inaugural congress, which starts today, it marks a completely fresh moment in how socialist thought and leftist thought, anti-imperialist thought is progressing in Ghana is the new organization very clear about not only the domestic policies of the government, but also of the international policies. And there's a lot to talk about here. For instance, the fact that the huge debt to GDP ratio of Ghana, the fact that three quarters of Ghana's revenue is now spent on debt servicing, the fact that Ghana and the United States have an agreement which enables it to set up basis, and the fact that Ghana has huge gold deposits. And while under Nakruma's time, they had control over 100% of it, today they have control over only 3% of that gold deposits. And that shows how, and Ghana is a microcosm because it shows how countries across the continent have been basically looted by western corporations, which are protected by imperialist powers. So the socialist movement very clear in identifying all these issues, very clear in calling for struggles. Ghana recently had an election in December which was a complete mess. It took a long time for results to come out and one of the most important factors was that both parties are basically the same. It's something the socialist movement very clearly talks about. There's no real difference between both these parties. They just alternate. They are under the control of the same forces. So what the socialist movement of Ghana seeks to do, just as Henaku talked to us in an interview where he explained all this, is to actually present an alternative to who are tired of this duopoly of two organizations which seem to oppose each other but which espouse the same values and the same thing exactly happening in many countries in Africa, across the world, rivals taking in the same policies. So this is definitely a milestone. I think it's very important to follow what happens in Ghana because of its regional influence, because of its resources and because of the fact that it will be in a position to provide directions to people across the world as well. Ghana recently had US planes come in. They are ferrying equipment to their various military bases in Africa. At Tricontinental, there's a report about the militarization of Africa, US and French bases. Well, French bases, France playing a role, a neo-colonial role, if I might say, maybe it's a hard word to use but I'm thinking of Kwame Krumah who we were just talking about who wrote a book in 1965 called Neo-colonialism. Neo-colonial bases. French President Emmanuel Macron just in Tahiti, the storied island of Tahiti in so-called French Polynesia arrives there to make a tour of France's overseas colonies. We must remember that these European powers continue to have overseas departments as the French like to call them. Well, in Tahiti, Mr. Macron made a couple of startling statements which I want to share with you because we have at People's Dispatch at Globe Prada, we've been following the story from what is known as French Polynesia centered in the island of Tahiti. Really quite an astounding set of statements from Mr. Macron. Background friends, the background is from 1966 to 1996 the French conducted 193 nuclear tests in the islands of Tahiti and neighboring islands 193 tests over 30 years. I'd like you to recall something. Before that, before 1966 France conducted its nuclear tests in Algeria. Now, Algeria wins its independence in 1962 and of course forbids France from exploding nuclear weapons in the desert. So France moves to Polynesia. It's important to remember that it was one colony and then it was another colony. Well, Mr. Macron in Tahiti made the following sentence. He said, I think it is true that we would not have carried out the same tests in La Cruz or in Brittany. These are in central and northwestern France. He said, I think it's true we wouldn't have carried out the tests there. We did it here in Polynesia. Now he's talking about Tahiti and for most people when you say the word Tahiti you think of some sort of paradise. We did it here in Polynesia because it was far away lost in the middle of the Pacific. Lost in the middle of the Pacific. It was not lost for the people of Polynesia. It was not far away for them. It was their home. Even in his statement, attempting to apologize very mildly for what the French had done over 30 years he continued to use racist and colonial language to say, well, sorry we didn't do the test in the French homeland but we did it somewhere far away and lost in the middle of the Pacific. But then he said, these tests he admitted he says 1966 to 74 I'm going to come back to that for a minute friends. He says they were not clean. He admits they were not clean. France has been refusing to pay restitution to the people of Polynesia who've claimed that they had cancers severe cancers subsequent to these tests. They were not clean. He made an admission. Let's see how the French courts deal with this. The court in the United States was quite quick to send Daniel Hale to prison for 45 months. How will they deal with this? Where the French president is on the record admitting that the tests were not clean, he said. Well, they said in his statement he says, till 1974 we tested and yet we remember in 1985 there was a Greenpeace ship called Rainbow Warrior which was leaving New Zealand going to Polynesia to block a French nuclear test two French security service agents got onto that ship laid an explosive the explosive went off killed a photographer who was on board the ship was prevented from going out to Murorau to observe the test. This is on the record friends. So when Macron says from 1966 to 74 we tested it's a blatant lie France tested till 1996 and that's why it's a 193 test put this on the record. Let's keep an eye to see if the people of French Polynesia are now threatened by rising waters and climate change. Let's see if the people of French Polynesia can count on the Paris climate accord to advance but before that let's see if the French courts will take seriously Macron's own admission made in Tahiti. Finally friends because this is give the people what they want and we come to you every Friday to talk about what's happening in Colombia because Zoe cannot do a show without taking us back to the terrible violence of the government of Ivan Duque and the regime in Colombia. Zoe what's the latest from Colombia? Well, Vijay I think it's especially important to highlight right now as we see kind of the US imperialist attacks against Cuba kind of heightened and using this discourse of human rights because I think Columbia kind of provides us a little bit more detail because it's not only you know a very close ally of the United States but one of the biggest recipients of military aid, of military training and of many and you know benefits from it's very very close relationships in the United States and so I think when we hear the United States talk about human rights in Cuba and how they need to defend the human rights against this regime we just need to look at Columbia and realize that what I wanted to kind of bring this up today is because you know we've been covering of course the humanitarian crisis in Colombia since the beginning of the show given the people what they want and when the national strike began three months ago you know we've been able to give that consistent coverage and what we've seen is that it hasn't changed the situation has not changed at all you know protests as part of the strike continue they continue to be met with brutal violence from the security forces this Wednesday there was another set of mobilizations you know in Bogota and you know protesters were repressed with tear gas water cannons baton attacks all of the sort another protestor was I think suffered very grave injuries and an important point to point out is that there was a German photographer her name is Marlene Sprower I'm probably getting her name wrong it's a German spelling and she you know since the beginning of the national strike she had been accompanying the mobilizations in Cali she had been taking photos you know reporting from you know as a German woman living in the city and she started to receive death threats from you know the vast networks of paramilitaries the operate in Colombia they started to receive threats days ago she was with her friend a 26 year old member of the first line of Cali which is you know the people who stand in the front of the mobilization to protect the other protesters from attacks from the police and they were I think at a restaurant and they suffered an assassination attempt armed men unidentified came and tried to kill her and her friend the 26 year old member of the first line protected her life he received 13 13 shots she received injuries that were the bullets that you know emerged from his body he died yesterday his name is Johann Sebastian Bonilla he died in the hospital and the day after this assassination attempt on a German photographer who has just been accompanying the protests in Colombia she was detained by the migration authorities in Colombia and she was deported to Germany so I think you know we started talking about whistleblowers people who are telling the truth people who are trying to expose the crimes of governments that are doing harm to their people this is another example of that and I think you know well she's an example of what happens when you try to tell the truth it doesn't matter if you're a foreigner the Colombian government does not want you speaking about what it's doing and you know of course this past weekend another signer of the peace agreement was assassinated outside his home a former combatant of the revolutionary armed forces of Colombia who in good faith gave up his weapons and joined the peace process put his life on the line and said I'm going to fight for peace in this country because peace is what we need and he was assassinated he's the 270th person from the revolutionary armed forces of Colombia who signed the peace agreements to be assassinated by paramilitaries by other forces and these social leaders have also been killed so it is a reality it is a reality meanwhile as we wrap up give the people what they want from people's dispatch and from Globetrotter Russian aircraft landed in Havana brought 88 tons of supplies Mexican ships including one named the liberator set sail from Mexico for Havana Nicaraguan ship set sail for Havana and a Bolivian air flotilla takes off for Havana this is the response made by these countries to the attempt to overthrow the Cuban revolution on the 11th of July it's a considerable act of solidarity you join us every Friday give the people what they want in fact we have a hard time fitting everything into a half hour you come here and join us because you like to listen to Prashant and Zoe from People's Dispatch who bring you the news at their website every day peoplesdispatch.org and I don't know what you get from me Vijay from Globetrotter but I'm glad you're with us see you next week