Reuters World News - China attacks, Trump’s federal purge and Hong Kong sentences

Episode Date: November 19, 2024

A driver in an SUV has crashed into students and pedestrians outside a primary school in southern China, as worries spread over a spate of violent attacks in the country. Hong Kong's High Court has jailed 45 pro-democracy activists for up to 10 years following a landmark national security trial. Donald Trump and Elon Musk have promised to slash government employees and cut costs but the federal workforce is looking to the incoming Republican-controlled Congress to protect it. Find our recommended read here. Listen to the Reuters Econ World podcast here Sign up for the Reuters Econ World newsletter here. Listen to our weekend episode on Iraq’s Yazidi religious minority 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, China on edge after a spate of violent attacks across the country. U.S. federal workers brace for Trump's promised cuts while looking to Congress for protection. And Hong Kong's high court jails dozens of pro-democracy activists. It's Tuesday, November 19th. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes, every weekday. I'm Christopher Waljasper in Chicago. and I'm David Spencer in London. First to Southern China,

where several people have been injured after an SUV plowed into students and pedestrians outside a primary school. This happened just days after a driver killed 35 people when he ran a vehicle into a crowd at a sports centre, also in southern China. Today's incident comes after an attack on Sunday, too, when a former student went on a stabbing rampage

at a vocational college in England. Eastern China, killing eight people. All of this has added to escalating fears over a spate of violent attacks in China this year. Casey Hall is in Shanghai. I think the reaction to these spade of incidents, what we've seen from online commentary is that people are angry, people are increasingly nervous and afraid. The randomness of it makes people feel genuinely frightened and uneasy. What do we know then about these separate incidents? The information that's released by the police in each of these incidents has been very, very limited. In some cases, the number, for example, of casualties comes much later after the actual incident.

But what we do see is, although it is quickly censored, people post videos online, people are commenting online, people are starting conversations online. Is there any connection between these incidents or attacks? No, no. I mean, this is happening in many different cities across the country. There is some ties among the suspects in these cases in terms of they seem to be people who feel aggrieved by some kind of financial loss. So there is a little bit of a tie in motivation and there is a little bit of a tie in that it seems that in many of these cases, what they're really striking out at is innocent bystanders, not people who have necessarily been directly involved in the situation that has made them feel aggrieved. And so the terminology that we see online in China for this is social revenge attacks. These are revenge attacks against society as a whole. Former Wisconsin Congressman Fox News host and reality star Sean Duffy is tapped to become Donald Trump's Secretary of Transportation. Duffy would manage a $110 billion budget as well as a significant amount of funding left from President Biden's $1 trillion infrastructure law,

including the expansion of EV charging stations. The House Ethics Committee is expected to discuss next steps on Wednesday in its investigation into Attorney General Pick Matt Gates, sources tell Reuters. A growing number of Trump's fellow Republicans in the Senate, which handles high-level presidential appointments, have called on the House panel to turn over its findings on allegations of sexual misconduct involving a teenager and drug use by Gates. Lebanon and Hezbollah have agreed to a U.S. proposal for a ceasefire with Israel, according to a top Lebanese official who described the effort as the most serious yet to end the

fighting. There's been no immediate comment from Israel. Tens of thousands of people at a rally at New Zealand's Parliament in Wellington, against a bill to alter Indigenous rights. It's one of the country's largest ever protest to oppose a bill which opponents say threatens to dilute the rights of Maori. Investors are still waiting to hear who Trump is going to pick as Treasury Secretary. Carmel Crimmons has more. So after a flurry of announcements for other positions,

the search for Treasury Secretary is actually widening. Trump had been expected to pick either Howard Lutnik, who's the CEO of Wall Street firm Cantor Fitzgerald or investor Scott Besant, but he's looking at other candidates too. Mark Rowan, the CEO of Apollo, and former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh, are now being considered as well.

And while we wait to hear who gets the top job, why not check out the latest episode of my podcast, Reuters Econ World? It's all about climate change, economic growth, and happiness. You can listen on the Reuters app or wherever you get your podcasts. Donald Trump and Elon Musk have promised promised to slash government employees and cut costs.

Now America's 2 million strong civilian federal workforce is looking to an unlikely source to protect it, the incoming Republican-controlled Congress. While federal employee unions are lining up lawyers and preparing public campaigns to try and avert any mass firings, they're also hoping Republican Congress members will join Democrats in defending their importance to local economies, health and safety. political reporter Andy Sullivan is in Washington. So not surprisingly, federal employees are pretty worried about Trump coming back to office and vowing to slash protections that make sure they can't just get fired arbitrarily.

These protections were put in place over the past century to build up a professional bureaucratic class and most people who work for the government aren't politicized. They're there to do their jobs. Trump has tapped Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswami to come up with a dramatic cost-cutting plan. Vivek said he would fire one and every two federal workers rather arbitrarily. First of all, even if he did that, it wouldn't save you that much money. The federal government spent about $6 trillion last year. That's with a T. Federal salaries come to about $271 billion. So that's about 4%. You fire half of those people, you get 2% in

savings, and then you don't have anybody to do things like cut Social Security checks or treat people in hospitals. So do Musk and Ramoswami even have the authority to do what they're promising? Yeah, that's a great question. We don't know at this point what sort of authority Elon and Vivek are going to be given. And there's a long tradition in Washington of doing this. Whenever there's a difficult problem, they say, let's set up a committee to study the problem. They come up with a report. The report is promptly shelved. People can come up with any sort of recommendations they want, but at the end of the day, they're going to have to get it through Congress. Republicans control both the House and the Senate, but many of these folks represent areas where the federal government has a pretty large footprint, employs a lot of people.

Think of anywhere there's a military base. These tend to be in conservative southern areas. They employ a ton of people. If you slash the government, that's all the people back home who are losing jobs. Anguish in Hong Kong, as a mother reacts to her son's sentencing and is taken away by police. He's one of 45 pro-democracy activists sentenced to jail for up to 10 years by the city's high court. They were arrested and charged in 2021 with conspiracy to commit subversion after a Beijing imposed law. The Chinese and Hong Kong government say the laws were necessary to restore order after mass protests in 2019 and the Democrats have been treated in accordance with local laws. James Pomfret is in Hong Kong.

This is in many ways the most closely watched national security case that has taken place over the past four years or so since the national security laws were promulgated by China. We had Australia's foreign minister, Penny Wong, criticizing the verdict today and saying that essentially China shouldn't clamp down on freedoms in Hong Kong. And the US government as well, they've been critical of this case and have called for the Democrats to be immediately released. So in terms of

reputation, it does deal quite a heavy blow to Hong Kong's aspirations to be a global financial hub, which in many ways is underpinned by the freedoms that are supposedly allowed here under laws. So there has been this feeling amongst some Western governments, there has been a deterioration of these freedoms over the past few years. And this ruling is quite significant in that regard, in again reminding people that this China-ruled city is becoming in some ways less free. Before we go today, our recommended Reid, which is looking at a thousand days of the Ukraine war. Thousands of people have died, over 6 million live as refugees abroad, and the population has fallen by a quarter since February 2022. There's a link to our story in the pod description.

And for more on any stories from today, check out reuters.com or the Reuters app. To never miss an episode, follow along on your favorite podcast player. We'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show.