Reuters World News - AI Putin and the marathon Q&A, EU welcomes Ukraine, Mexican migrants

Episode Date: December 15, 2023

The European Union has decided to start historic membership talks with Ukraine – but Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is still holding up aid money. How cartel violence has spurred record Mexican migration to the US. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan says Israel will transition to a new phase of its war in Gaza. Plus, what it’s like to sit through a four-hour news conference by Russian President Vladimir Putin. 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, the European Union opens the door to Ukraine membership as Hungary's Viktor Orbán blocks European funding for Kiev. Cartel violence drives record Mexican migration to the US and what it's really like to sit through a four-hour press conference by Vladimir Putin. It's Friday, December 15th. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes, every weekday. I'm Carmel Crimmons in Dublin.

European Union leaders have made the historic decision to open membership talks with Ukraine. The move gives Kiev a major political boost as its war against Russia's invasion grinds on. Charles Michel is European Council President. Today and tonight, I think to the people of Ukraine, we are on their side. EU leaders bypassed objections from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban by getting him to leave the room while they agreed to start accession talks. But they could not overcome Orban's resistance to a financial aid package for Ukraine. Andrew Gray was in Brussels and up until the early hours following talks.

Andrew, what does this mean in practice for Ukraine's membership bid? Well, this is in a political sense a big step forward. Before Ukraine was a candidate to become a member of the European Union and now the European Union has said, OK, we're ready to go to the next step and that is opening membership talks. That is negotiations which would take years, probably many years, but it does put them on a path to to EU membership. There's no guarantee they'd get there at the end, but it starts that process. Does it mean anything for NATO? Does it bring Ukraine closer to that alliance? Not really. That's a separate process and there are obviously separate considerations there.

I mean, the big issue, obviously, with NATO is that it has a collective defense clause. That means if Ukraine were attacked by Russia, for example, again in the future, the other members of NATO would come to Ukraine's aid militarily. A bit different for the European Union. It does actually have a defence clause as well, but it's not a military alliance. So it's not seen as the same kind of risk as you would have with Ukraine joining NATO. How exactly does it work getting Orban to leave the room to make the decision? This is a really good question. It was a new one on all of us, including people who've been covering the European Union for many years because this decision had to be taken unanimously. So we were all expecting a long, difficult summit just over this issue. But then it turns out

there is a way to have a unanimous decision with somebody not in the room if it's with their consent. So apparently what happened is that German Chancellor Olaf Schultz suggested to Orban that he leave the room while the decision was taken because all the other members of the EU, all other 26, were in favour. And Orban chose to accept that solution. What happens now with the money? So they say they will try and come back in January, have another summit probably, and try and get a final deal.

If they don't, the other EU members, meaning the 26, not Hungary, have said they will find ways to do this outside the EU budget. No happy holidays yet for US senators. They've delayed their break to see if a deal can be done on aid for Ukraine. The Senate will now vote on funding for Ukraine and Israel next week as talks continue over changes to U.S. border security policy that would be tied to any agreement. The U.S. wants Israel to scale back its war in Gaza.

Here's White House National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, in Jerusalem. There will be a transition to another phase of this war, one that is focused in more precise ways on targeting the leadership and on intelligence-driven operations that continues to deal with the ongoing threat that Hamas poses. He gave no indication on a time. timing for the shift. Israel has come under increasing global pressure to reduce civilian casualties in Gaza.

German shipping line Happigloid says one of its vessels was attacked while sailing close to the coast of Yemen earlier today. There were no immediate claims of responsibility. Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis have been attacking ships in the Red Sea since the start of the Israel-Hamas war. A British boy who disappeared six years ago has been found in southern France. Alex Batty, who's now a teenager, was found fleeing a spiritualist mountain community, according to the delivery driver who picked him up along the highway. To markets now, and that Fed-inspired feel-good rally is showing no sign of slowing down.

Investors are really running with the idea that the US is going to achieve a soft landing next year, allowing the Fed to cut rates. A much more cautious tone from the European Central Bank and the Bank of England has not dampened the mood. The Dow hit a record overnight. There is a risk that there could be a pullback as investors try and book some profits.

But one thing underpinning, the current rally is the huge pile of cash sitting on the sidelines. Investors have amassed nearly $6 trillion in cash while they sat out the Fed's battle against inflation. If interest rates are set to fall, they may look to pile that back into stocks. That's the moment Russian President Vladimir Putin was questioned at his annual press conference, by himself, or at least by a very convincing double. It was actually a video caller resembling the Russian leader, generated by AI. It prompted some rare, hesitation from Putin, already in his fourth hour of taking questions. Our Russia bureau chief,

Guy Falkenbridge, was there for the marathon event. How do you prepare for something like this? This is, how long was this event? It was four hours and about four minutes, I think. So you have to prepare by basically not drinking or eating very much beforehand because you don't particularly want to have to leave the room. So I was going to ask you about that. Are toilet breaks forbidden during this or can you nip out if you have to? I wouldn't try it given the security that there is there. There's quite a lot of security to get in to see Vladimir Putin. So the day before we had to give a COVID test in the Kremlin clinic and then you go through basically sort of four or five checkpoints with police, then you have an x-ray machine which is way stricter than an airport

x-ray machine. And after waiting outside for about an hour in the freezing conditions, you'll then let into this sort of vast hall just round the corner from the Kremlin, where actually they give you a lot of food and tea and coffee. But yeah, it's kind of a strange experience, I'd say. And just to clarify, this is a very rare opportunity for the foreign media in particular to get close to Putin, right? This is super rare. Like, basically since the war started, we have not been allowed to get close to Putin at all. So yesterday I was about, what, 10 metres away.

And even though like halfway through a bodyguard came and sat right in front of me, he was so big, I couldn't really see Putin. That, yeah, that was the closest that we've been to Putin for a long time, a very long time. And in terms of particularly this year, domestic focus, is Putin very much presenting himself for re-election in 2024? So he's presenting himself for re-election and he's obviously going to win that. And I think he's also trying to present to the world an image of we're going to carry a, on doing what we're doing internally. We're not going to change our course. But it is interesting that it didn't go off on America. I thought that was pretty interesting. Migration at the US southern border is at the heart of the funding battle in Congress over Ukraine. The issue has become

front and center as we draw near to an election year. And while many of the people seeking asylum travel from central to South America, this year has brought a big rise in the number of Mexican cities fleeing to the US to escape violence from warring drug cartels. Dana Bet Solomon in Mexico City dug into this story and a warning that this segment has descriptions of violence that some listeners may find upsetting. There was one woman who I spoke to who said that she felt like she had to leave Mexico

because she didn't feel safe anywhere in the country. She had left home with her three children from the state of Michoacan, which for years has had problems with violence, but it came very close to home for her. because her partner was killed and she found out because his head

was delivered to her front door. She said there was nowhere in Mexico she could go where she would feel safe that she feared the criminal group that killed her partner would know how to track her, would know how to find her, and that they're just everywhere.

My colleagues and I spoke to almost two dozen migrant families at the border in Texas and Arizona. And what really stood out to us is that they all talked about violence as being their main reason for leaving home. Over the last 12 months through October, that number has quadrupled from the year before. That translates into about 180,000 people and is now about a fifth of all migrants of different nationalities that are going into the U.S. as family units. And that's significant because in the past,

the migration from Mexico was dominated largely by adult men traveling alone who were going to the United States to look for better paying jobs and send money back home to their families. And the Mexican families who are leaving and going to the U.S. right now, the main reason they're fleeing their homes is because of violence and organized crime and the rise of very powerful cartels. And that typically is not one of the criteria for receiving asylum in the United States. That's it for today's episode of Reuters World News. We'll have a special pod over the weekend looking at what was agreed at this year's cop summit

and what it actually means for planet Earth. And we'll be back with our daily headline show on Monday. To know what's going on in the world, listen in for 10 minutes every weekday. And don't forget to subscribe on your favourite podcast player or download the Reuters app.