Reuters World News - Canada’s killer accusation, the Fed’s triple threat and Elon’s UNGA agenda. Plus, freed prisoners on US soil

Episode Date: September 19, 2023

India responds to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s accusation that New Delhi was behind a killing of a Sikh separatist. Five American prisoners released from Iran touch down. The Fed begins its two-day interest rate meeting with a looming triple threat and Elon Musk’s UNGA agenda explained. Plus, our special report on corruption allegations in Ukraine. 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, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accuses India of an assassination on Canadian soil. The Fed meets to set interest rates as a strike, a shutdown and student loans further complicate inflation math. And Elon Musk takes another meeting with the world leader on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. It's Tuesday, September 19th. This is Reuters World News, with everything you need to know from the front line. in 10 minutes every weekday. I'm Kim Vinal in London. Convierre your passion in a business with Shopify

and bathe records of ventas with the form of pay with a better conversion of the world. Has you heard it? The best conversion of the world. The incredible system of Pago of Shopify facilitates on your site web, in the networks, and in whatever place. That is music for your ears.

No, let's more whiltas. Your business will be a super-exit with Shopify. Anya your period of Prueva for an euro a month in Shopify.s bar records. Any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau telling Parliament there is credible information linking Indian government agents to the murder of a Sikh separatist leader in British Columbia.

in June. Ypeh Rajesh is in New Delhi. WIPI, how did the government respond? India's response has been quite strong and sharp. The government came out with a statement early in the morning saying that allegations made by Canada and Prime Minister Trudeau were absurd and motivated. And they also expelled a Canadian diplomat in Tit for Tat move because Canada did the same earlier on Monday. And they gave the diplomat five days to leave India. Why are relations between the two countries fraying? India has been very concerned about Sikh separatist activities in countries such as Canada, Britain, the United States and Australia over the last few years.

Although the Sikh separatist movement of the insurgency has died down in India, there are some embers of this among the Sikh diaspora in these countries, which is why India is very upset with Canada's, allegations about the Sikh separatist leader. He's one of many Sikh separatist leaders who have been active around the world. Now to breaking news from around the world. A plane carrying five Americans freed by Iran has landed in the United States. In a rare deal between Washington and Tehran, they were swapped for five Iranians detained in the U.S., as well as the unfreezing of $6 billion in Iranian funds.

The plane arrived at Andrew's Air Base this morning. Debris from a missing F-35 fighter jet has been found, a day after officials asked the public's help in locating it. The pilot safely ejected from the aircraft on Sunday afternoon, but where the multi-million dollar stealth jet had come down had been a mystery. YouTube has blocked Russell Brand from making any money on his channel after a series of sexual abuse allegations. The comedian and actor denies the allegations.

YouTube says it's suspended the monetization of the channel for violating our creator responsibility policy. The Federal Reserve starts its two-day meeting to set rates. Howard Schneider in Washington, D.C. has been examining how a strike, a shutdown and student loans change the equation for the Fed. So, Howard, let's start with the auto workers strike. Well, listen, the way things are lining up, the Fed, was already expected to hold interest rates steady in its meeting. So that's going to move ahead. You know, there's no reason for them to change that as a result of the strike. They're coming out of a situation where for the last year or two, auto industry supply chain's been incredibly tangled.

Now they might get tangled again. Maybe car prices start rising again. That's a complication for their inflation fight. So look, if this ends this week, next week, they'll probably forget about it. If it's still going on when they meet in October, early November, they're certainly going to take account of it as a risk to growth in the economy. What about the potential of a government shutdown or student loan repayments restarting? Yeah, so this was interesting. When I sort of ran these things around to different economists, they said, listen, what causes recessions are shocks, unexpected things that have unexpected outcomes. Now you've got three things kind of lining up here that could really sap consumption.

Now, the Fed, to some degree, wants people to spend less money. That's what they're after with higher interest rates, trying to curb demand. So prices will come down. Demand will come down. Well, now you've got potentially two major industries, autos and the federal government, which employs 800,000 people, possibly out of work with those paychecks not coming in. And then you've got tens of millions of people potentially facing 250, 300 bucks a month. Suddenly they're going to have to start paying out of pocket again. So the question is, like, you'll want consumption to slow, but now you add three consumption shocks on top of that, is that the thing that really causes people to start retrenching and

eroding confidence on the business side as well? That could be an extra blow to the economy that they weren't expecting. At this year's UN General Assembly in New York, sideline meetings with one man in particular are garnering headlines, CEO Elon Musk. Tech reporter Sheila Dang in New York covers many of the industries Musk has his hand in. So Sheila, who is he? meeting with? The Turkish president recently met with Musk and asked him to build a Tesla factory in Turkey. So Musk controls a lot of potential for jobs in these different countries where he could be building these factories. And on Monday, Musk sat down with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the two of them spoke about how to harness the power of AI. But Netanyahu also,

had him address the topic of anti-Semitism on X. Has Musk expressed many views on geopolitics when he sat down with these leaders? Musk has not expressed much opinion about diplomatic issues in Turkey or Israel, but he has voiced some support for some type of resolution with the Ukraine War. He's also met recently with Chinese officials as well, and he spoke with leaders there about the development of electric cars and Tesla's development in China. It is quite interesting that as a non-elected official, Musk has control over so much manufacturing and communication, it will be interesting to see what other influence he has with government leaders. You can keep up with all the latest from Unger at Reuters.com or on our app. And if you haven't had a chance yet, make sure you take a listen to our weekend episode,

which has the inside guide to this year's meeting. Graft accusations continue to dog top aides of Ukrainian president, Vladim Zelensky. Investigative journalist Stephen Gray has new reporting out today about one of those aids. Stephen, who is this man Oleg Tatarov? Oleg Tatarov is one of the closest advisors to President Zelensky of Ukraine. And he's in charge of all relations between the president and law enforcement and the security services, which is a bit ironic given that he has faced unresolved allegations about bribery himself. What are these allegations?

So he's previously been accused by anti-corruption agencies of specifically organizing a bribe. Now, I tracked down the former head of this private construction company who I found in Vienna. And he actually levelled even more serious accusations. He described how behind his desk he used to have a large safe, full of dollar bills. That's how the construction industry works in Ukraine, he said. And Tatarov used to come along and take wads of bills, take them off, and use them to make some of these construction projects happen. And the way he'd do that was, he alleged, paying bribes.

And now he's working for President Zelensky. How did President Zelensky or Mr. Tatarov respond? So we haven't had any response from either Zolensky. or Tatarov to our questions. But when faced with this specific allegation from the anti-corruption agencies, Tatarov has firmly denied any wrongdoing. And Zelensky, when asked about why he employ Ola, Tatarov,

has said that he wouldn't employ him if anything was proven against him. And this comes at a difficult time for Zelensky, right? Because not only is there the military campaign almost at a stalemate, but he's also facing increasing accusations of corruption at home. And the people of Ukraine holds Zelensky responsible, that accountable for dealing with corruption. He's promised to deal with it. But if he doesn't, all the help he gets from the West,

the plans of joining the European Union or even NATO, they all stand in the balance if there isn't progress on corruption. That's it for today's episode. of Reuters World News. We'll be back on Wednesday with our daily news 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 favourite podcast player or download the Reuters app.