Reuters World News - 'Apocalypse' in Hawaii, Ecuador’s assassination and fentanyl by the numbers

Episode Date: August 10, 2023

Deadly wildfires in the resort town Lahaina leave people scrambling for their lives. We have the latest as the death toll rises. The assassination of outspoken presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio shocks Ecuador. Europe starts to crack down after a rise in direct action climate protests. Plus, we break down the fentanyl epidemic.  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, devastation in Hawaii as residents flee to the ocean to escape smoke and flames. A presidential candidate in Ecuador, known for tough stances on organized crime and corruption, is assassinated. Europe cracks down after a rise of direct action climate protests. And we break down America's fast, cheap and deadly fentanyl epidemic by the numbers. It's Thursday, August 10th. This is Reuters World News, with everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes. Every weekday. I'm Kim Vinal in London.

We start on the island of Maui, where fires, fanned by hurricane winds, have wreaked devastation. Dozens are dead, with much of the resort city of Lahaina and entire neighborhoods burnt to the ground. Mason Javi suffered burns to his leg as he fled the. the flames. Resident of Lahaina for about 18 years and we just have the worst disaster I've ever seen. All the Haina is burnt too crisp. It's like an apocalypse. Others running into the water to try and escape.

Thousands of people have been evacuated and hospitals are overwhelmed. If anybody still out here, it's time to go! Dustin Johnson ran through Lahaina's pier when it became engulfed in smoke, ensuring everyone was moved to safety. Aerial images of the islands look like a war zone, with smoke rising from block after block. As the situation on the ground in Hawaii develops, go to Reuters.com or download our app for the latest.

Now to the top news from around the world. In Ecuador, presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio has been assassinated. His sister Patricia was alongside him when he was shot during a campaign event in the north of the capital, Quito. She said it was a glowworm of bullets, a hundred shots. It lasted for a long time. She spoke as supporters gathered outside the scene of the shooting.

The Attorney General's office in Ecuador says a suspect was killed during a shootout in the capital. President Guillermo Laso issued a statement, saying, for his memory and his fight, I assure you that this crime will. not remain unpunished. Via Vicencio, a former unionist and journalist, was a vocal critic of corruption and organized crime. Joe Biden has signed an executive order that will prohibit some new U.S. investment in China in sensitive technologies like computer chips. The order aims to prevent American money and expertise helping China develop its military and undermine U.S. national security.

The US Special Counsel investigating Donald Trump obtained a search warrant for the former president's Twitter account in January. According to a US appeals court opinion, the company delayed complying and Twitter, now known as X, was held in contempt and fined $350,000. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has replaced the military's top general and called for more preparations for the possibility of war. He's also demanded a boost in weapons production and an expansion of military drills. On markets this morning, all eyes are on the CPI.

The July number expected to influence the Federal Reserve's next interest rate decision. Traders put the chance of no rate hike at the Fed's next policy meeting in September at 86.5% according to CME Fedwatch tool. This is the moment climate activist Simon Lachner was arrested in Germany. The 20-year-old had planned to glue himself to a German city thoroughfare. Instead, he ended up in police custody before he even left his home. As climate protests gather steam, states in Germany and national authorities in France are invoking legal powers often used against organized crime and extremist groups to wiretap and track activists.

Riham Alcusa in Berlin based her reporting on conversations with four prosecutors, police in both countries and more than a dozen protesters. Riham, what did you learn? I got to see the video of Simon Lachner before he went on the protest. He said from the knock on his door, he knew that that wasn't just a neighbor or delivery service. They said that because he publicly announced that he was going to take action in that protest, which they see as an offense. So they were preventive or hindering that protest. He said it was his first time ever being on that kind of preventive custody before going on protest.

How are the activists responding? Well, the activists see this increasing crackdown as a proof that their tactics are working. They cited famous quote by Gandhi saying, first they laugh at you, then they ignore you and then they fight you. But it was clear and they made it clear that they are very insistent that they will keep this movement nonviolent. Because, of course, there is the moral reason why they don't want to engage in violence, but also they said they acknowledge the fact that once this movement takes a violent turn, they will face more violence from governments. So they were very clear on staying non-violent.

Since fentanyl's first appearance at the southern border, the headline numbers have been jaw-dropping. In eight years, 325,000 people in the US have died from overdoses involving synthetic opioids. The drug is 50 times more potent than heroin. Jackie Bots in Mexico City worked with our graphics team to visualize the share scale of the fentanyl epidemic. Their work is on Reuters.com.

Jackie, how did your team go about visualizing the power of this drug? For this report, we obtained and we analyzed 10 years' worth of data on drugs seized by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The data includes over 85,000 individual drug seizure events, which provides a lot more detail and over a longer period than publicly available data. And it really illustrates how Mexican drug trafficking. trafficking organizations have flooded the U.S. with fentanyl. We compared how two milligrams of fentanyl, which is considered a fatal dose, is barely visible compared to a penny. We also showed how the

space it required to create a kilogram of fentanyl compares to the many hectares of poppy that it would take to produce the equivalent of heroin. And we show how a single kilogram of low purity fentanyl powder, which could contain over 50,000 doses, could be very easily hidden inside a vehicle as it passes through a port of entry at the U.S. southern border. Which makes it even harder for Border Patrol to catch, right? Yeah, the challenges to stopping fentanyl at the border are really immense. Experts explain to me that fentanyl is so cheap and so potent that traffickers are using a shotgun approach where they send tons of tiny loads on border

crossers, knowing that some will get through and some will get caught and what gets caught is easily replaced. Why is fentanyl the drug of preference? Well, fentanyl has a lot of advantages for drug trafficking organizations, especially compared to other drugs made from plants like heroin. First, it's incredibly cheap and easy to produce. It can be produced in really small spaces with basic equipment in a matter of days. Labs can be easily hidden from authorities and jungles or even apartments. If you compare the production to heroin, which is synthesized from the gum of opium poppies, you need vast stretches of land.

you need farmers to produce the poppies and extract the gum. You're at the whim of Mother Nature or law enforcement. And if a load of heron gets seized at the border, you might have to wait for the next season to replace that. And experts that I talked to explain that the conveniences of fentanyl production mean that Mexican drug trafficking organizations are able to literally create a demand for fentanyl by just flooding it into U.S. drug markets.

The CBP and DEA say their recent priority on disrupting Mexican companies, cartels, fentanyl operations, has brought results and said investments in inspection and intelligence was helping disrupt trafficking. To read more, check out our graphic at Reuters.com. That's it for today's episode of Reuters World News. We'll be back with our daily headline show tomorrow. 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.