Reuters World News - Biden’s polling pressure, UK election countdown and Lebanese farmers’ white phosphorous worries

Episode Date: July 3, 2024

One in three Democrats think US President Joe Biden should end his reelection bid following last week's poor debate performance against Donald Trump. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Labour leader Keir Starmer have kicked off the last day of campaigning before polls open in the UK election. And farmers in southern Lebanon are testing soil in their fields amid fears it has been compromised by the Israeli military's use of white phosphorous in cross border clashes. Sign up for the Reuters Econ World newsletter here. Listen to the Reuters Econ World podcast here. 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, a poll shows one in three Democrats think Biden should quit the race. It's the last day of campaigning before the UK election. And Lebanese farmers dig for answers on Israel's white phosphorus use. It's Wednesday, July 3rd. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes every weekday. I'm Tara Oaks in London. Donald Trump's sentencing for his hush money conviction has been delayed until September. It was due to take place next Thursday, just days before the start of the Republican National Convention.

Now it will be on September 18th, less than seven weeks before the election. It's been pushed back following the landmark Supreme Court ruling that presidents cannot be criminally prosecuted for official acts. Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden has acknowledged his performance during last week's presidential debate was not his best and blamed it on jet lag. Speaking in Virginia, Biden said he'd ignored the advice of staff after a couple of long overseas trips and nearly fell asleep on stage. That shaky debate performance has had an impact in the latest Reuters Ipsos poll of Democrats. It found the one in three Democrats think Joe Biden should. end his re-election bid as a result. But the poll also found that the hypothetical alternatives to Biden didn't fare any better against Donald Trump. Biden is facing pressure from some donors

who have called for him to step aside, while other elected Democrats are openly worrying about his chances in November. Scott Malone is our politics editor. So Scott, at this point, how has the debate impacted Biden's support? We didn't see a drop in overall voter support for Biden following the debate. This poll found him and Trump still neck and neck at 40 percent support, but the Biden camp had wanted to use the debate to pull ahead and to start to show that he could be in a leading position. That didn't happen. However, Americans clearly have more concerns about Biden. 72 percent of respondents to this poll said Biden is too old to work in government. That's more than the 48% who said that of Trump.

We also polled some possible alternatives to Biden should he drop out, and at this point we should say he's firmly vowing not to do so. But how did they do? Five of them include Vice President Kamala Harris and four governors. That's Gavin Newsom of California, Andy Bishier of Kentucky, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, and J.B. Pritzker of Illinois. None of those governors or Harris performed any better in Head to... had matchups with Trump, then did Biden. Now, it's important to look at those results with a little bit

of context. None of them are declared candidates. None of them are kind of building the national profile Biden has had for years. There is one very well-known Democrat who did poll better than Trump, and that is former First Lady Michelle Obama, who went ahead to head with Donald Trump, led 50% to 39%. However, Michelle Obama has said again and again and again that she has, not interested in running for president. So that likely means that Democrats will need to look in other directions in the event that Biden does decide to step aside. More than 100 people have been killed in a stampede

at a religious gathering in India. Thousands had gathered in a village in Uttar Pradesh in North India in sweltering temperatures. This man mourning the loss of his wife and his mother. The police are investigating. and officials say overcrowding and the heat may have played a part. Turkey has closed its main border crossings into northwest Syria. The move comes after Turkish troops came under fire from Syrians,

angry about the violence against their compatriots inside the country. Riots in central Turkey have been ongoing since the weekend. And Turkish police have detained almost 500 people involved in attacks targeting the Syrian community. Hurricane Beryl is barreling towards Jamaica and is expected to bring life-threatening winds and storms with it. The Cayman Islands are bracing for it later tonight and into Thursday. The Category 4 storm has left at least three people dead on smaller islands in the eastern Caribbean. Markets are in top form ahead of a July 4th holiday in the US.

Is it the thought of a day off and hot dogs that has them so enthused? Carmel Crimmons is here to tell us. It's actually Fed chair Jerome Powell that's lifted the mood. He said inflation was getting back on a downward path, lifting hopes of some rate cuts this year. That powered the S&P to a record high on Tuesday. And we'll be diving into Powell and the Fed on this week's episode of Reuters Econ World. We're looking at Central Bank Independence

and how it's emerged as an issue in this year's US presidential election campaign. You can catch the show on the Reuters app or wherever you get your podcasts. And there's a newsletter to accompany it. You can sign up for that on roiders.com. It's the last day of campaigning in the UK election, with some polls predicting a record victory for Labour. That would end 14 years of Conservative government, and some forecasts predict their worst ever result. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Labour's Kirstama have kicked off the last day of the campaign by warning voters of the dire economic consequences if the other man wins.

What a huge opportunity we have. to get out there, fight for every single vote. This is an incredible opportunity for change across the whole of the United Kingdom. Kirstorma there, repeating Labour's message for change. For the Conservatives, the campaign has increasingly focused on reducing the size of a Labour victory. And on the eve of a vote, there was a surprise appearance by Boris Johnson. He led the Conservatives to a convincing victory in 2019. If you're slightly surprised to see me, if you're slightly surprised me, I'll be absolutely clear that I was glad when Rishi asked me to help.

Of course I couldn't say no. He's not always seen eye to eye with his former Chancellor Sunak. And Johnson's ousting as Prime Minister was followed by the 49-day reign of Liz Truss. Since then, Sunak has striven to steady the ship and called the election more than six months earlier than he had to. The result is expected. early Friday morning UK time. Make sure you listen to our Friday pod to get the latest. Farmers in southern Lebanon dig to collect soil samples for lab analysis.

They worry that their fields may have been poisoned by the Israeli military's use of white phosphorus in cross-border clashes since October. White phosphorus can be used in shells, bombs and rockets. It's permitted in war for making smokescreens, marking targets and burning buildings. But it's banned where there could be civilians. Our Lebanon Bureau Chief, Maya Jabili, spoke to farmers trying to understand

what the chemical has done to their land. Zakaria Farah has a relatively young farmer in southern Lebanon in the area of Alayah, which is in southeast Lebanon. What he wants to do is find out whether white phosphorus is going to have a lasting, impact on his soil. So what he and a few others have done is gathered a series of samples from their land and concentric circles from where the shelling took place. And they've sent those

samples to a lab at the American University of Beirut, where soil scientists are testing them to try to determine whether there's a lasting toxicity level in that soil. What has the lab said? So what they've told us is that for them to be able to have a conclusive result, they need to have more samples. And that's the crux of the issue. A lot of farmers in the South have abandoned their fields. Some of them have left Lebanon altogether. And the ones that are still there are too afraid to venture out into those open fields, less they be targeted in Israeli shelling.

What it means for a farmer like Zechariah is that he's not planting the usual things that he plants, which is tobacco, zucchini, lentils, wheat, etc. He's not able to feed his own family, nor is he able to sell to the neighboring vegetable markets around him. he's really just trying to survive for the next two months until he knows for sure whether he can plant again. What has Israel said about any use of white phosphorus in southern Lebanon? What they told us in response was that the, quote, primary smoke shells, and quote, that the Israeli military uses do not contain white phosphorus. The military said it uses smoke shells to create smoke screens and that it only uses, quote, lawful means of warfare. And they didn't specify if there were additional smoke shells that they do use that have white phosphorus.

for us in them, but they've really insisted that they only use lawful means of warfare. That's it for Wednesday. We're off for the 4th of July tomorrow. We'll be back on Friday with our daily headline show and the UK election results. And to never miss an episode, subscribe on your favourite podcast player or download the Reuters app.