Reuters World News - A New York hit job, U.S. bishops back oil and the Supreme Court's big decision

Episode Date: December 1, 2023

The United States alleges an Indian government official directed an assassination plot in New York. Climate talks kick off in Dubai with a rift over fossil fuels mirrored in the Catholic Church, where U.S. bishops continue to invest in oil and gas. The Supreme Court is hearing a case with major implications for the government’s ability to set and enforce rules. Plus, the latest on the Gaza truce and Elon Musk’s sharp words for advertisers. Visit the Thomson Reuters Privacy Statement for information on our privacy and data protection practices. You may also visit megaphone.fm/adchoices to opt out of targeted advertising. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, fears over the fate of the youngest hostage, as Israel and Hamas extend the Gaza truce by one day. The United States says an Indian government official directed an assassination plot in New York. A rift over fossil fuels at climate talks in Dubai is reflected inside the Catholic Church. And the Supreme Court hears a case which could upend the government's ability to set and enforce regulations. It's Thursday, November 30th. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes. Every weekday. I'm Kim Vinal in London.

Israel and Hamas have agreed to extend their ceasefire by one more day. The truce allows negotiators to keep working on deals to swap hostages in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners. But the peace is an uneasy one. Ambulances converge on the scene of. of a shooting at the entrance to Jerusalem. Israeli police say two Palestinians opened fire at a bus stop during morning rush hour, killing three people. The gunmen were also killed.

Visiting the site, Israel's far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Givir, said the attacks showed why the fight against Hamas should continue. Israel is checking a claim by Hamas that the youngest hostage, 10-month-old Kifir Babas, his four-year-old brother and their mother were killed in an Israeli aerial bombing. Pictures of the children with their distinctive red hair came to symbolise the hostage crisis. Henry Kissinger, the most powerful secretary of state of the post-war era, has died at the age of 100. He helped engineer the United States opening to China and arms control talks with the Soviet Union. His work to end America's involvement in the Vietnam War earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973.

That award was hugely controversial. Two members of the Nobel Committee resigned over his selection after questions emerged about the secret US bombing of Cambodia. Japan has asked the US to suspend all non-emergency Osprey flights over its territory after one crashed into the sea on Wednesday. The U.S. Air Force says the cause of the mishap, which kills at least one person, is currently unknown. Nepal has registered the Himalayan nation's first same-sex marriage. The registration comes five months after the Supreme Court issued an interim order clearing the way for marriage equality in the largely conservative country. It's time for markets now with Carmel Crimmons, and Carmel Elon Musk has some strong words for advertisers.

Yes, he cursed out Brahms who have left X after he endorsed an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory on the social media platform. So he was at an appearance at a New York Times event in Manhattan in which he apologized repeatedly for this tweet. But at the same event, he said advertisers were attempting to blackmail him and he used a four-letter word multiple times to hammer home his point. Surely, though, it's a bad idea to let rip on your advertisers? Well, Musk did acknowledge that an extended boycott could bankrupt X, but he suggested the public would blame the brands rather than him for its collapse. The United States says an Indian government official tried to have a Sikh separatist killed in New York City.

The dramatic development risks new tensions in a deepening relationship between D.C. and D.C. and D.C. and Luke, what do we know about this alleged assessment? assassination attempt? So federal prosecutors in Manhattan announced charges against an Indian national named Nikiel Gupta, who they accused of plotting to assassinate a Sikh separatist who lived in the United States. The prosecutors said that Gupta acted at the direction of an Indian government official who they did not name, but said with someone who had responsibilities in the intelligence area. How did he end up getting arrested? Gupta contacted someone he thought was just a criminal associate of his to help him find a hitman

in the United States to carry out the assassination. But it turns out that the person he thought was an associate was actually a confidential source of U.S. law enforcement. This case comes two months after Canada accused India of involvement in the murder of a Sikh separatist in Vancouver, Hardeeb Singh-Nijar. New Delhi denied those allegations. Are the cases linked? So in this case, Gupta, according to prosecutors, had discussed the murder of Nijar with the undercover source of U.S. law enforcement, saying that Nijar had also been

a target of his plot and that we have so many targets. So there is an indication in the indictment that the murder in Canada and the attempted murder in the United States were part of the city plot. India's foreign ministry said the U.S. allegations were a matter of concern, and such a plot was not the government's policy. COP 28 kicks off in Dubai today with a notable absence. The Pope had to pull out at the last minute because of a lung infection. Pope Francis has pushed the Catholic Church globally to move away from fossil fuels.

But new reporting from Reuters has found that in the United States, a single diocese has divested from fossil fuels. U.S. Energy and Environment reporter Richard Valmarnas is on his way to Dubai. Richard, what did your reporting find? Well, the Vatican has divested of fossil fuels and Vatican officials have repeatedly and fairly explicitly called on Catholic organizations around the world to do the same. But no U.S. diocese has done so. I've found that a lot of these diocese in their financial reports list millions of dollars in energy stock and energy bonds. Some of them even have leases with oil drillers in Texas, which don't make them a lot of money, but they do show that some of these diocese have a direct involvement in oil and gas extraction. When I spoke to some of the representatives of these diocese, they told me that they strongly support the Pope's call for environmental stewardship, but they point.

pointed out that the US Conference of Catholic Bishops does not require fossil fuel divestment in its investment guidance. What it says is that diocese should consider divestment of companies that are egregious offenders of climate goals. And climate's not the only source of disagreement between the US bishops in Rome? There are probably some cases where bishops very clearly disagree with the Pope who has a very left-leaning stance on a lot of issues. Some of these bishops represent diocese that are quite conservative. I spoke to a researcher at Cricht University who said she's done quite a bit of research on the engagement of bishops on the issue of climate change and is found that there

is demonstrable evidence that the bishops in the United States don't care as much about climate change as the Pope does based on their official writings. And one of the suspicions there is that they represent communities that are conservative, that don't necessarily believe in the urgency of climate change or the causes, and where a lot of the conservative donors would disagree with a position like that. You can hear more about those climate talks in Dubai in a special episode this weekend, so stay tuned for that. Conservative judges on the U.S. Supreme Court appear skeptical about the Security and Exchange Commission's use of in-house judges. The case has the potential to broadly undercut the power of federal agencies.

The Wall Street regulator, using its own in-house judge, determined hedge fund manager George Jarkasie had committed securities fraud. But the fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals throughout the SEC's decision, saying Jarkasie had a right to a jury trial. and that Congress gave the SEC too much power to choose whether to bring cases in-house or in federal court. Now, the Biden administration is appealing that ruling. But what happens if the Supreme Court agrees? Alison Frankel writes a column about business litigation.

If the court decides this on narrow grounds, agencies will probably be able to figure out a way to respond. And if the court decides that defendants are entitled to trial by jury in cases involving very serious potential consequences, that could be a bigger problem. The third scenario is the one that really has progressives worried. The court could end up deciding that all of the rulemaking power Congress has given to federal agencies over the last 80 years is too much and has to be reined in. And so the case has an outlier potential of really restricting what administrative agencies are able to do in terms of making rules and regulations in pretty much every important area of American business and American

life. That's it for today's episode of Reuters World News. We'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show. To make sure you know what's going on in the world, listen in for 10 minutes every weekday. And don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast player or download the Reuters app.