Reuters World News - China’s bankers take up cards, Wagner’s leaderless fighters and Spain’s isolated soccer chief

Episode Date: August 28, 2023

China’s bankers are learning to play a poker-like card game to woo domestic investors. Russian mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin is officially dead -- what next for his Wagner fighters? Plus, Spain wants soccer president Luis Rubiales to resign for kissing a player on the lips at the World Cup and Simone Biles wins another record. 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, Putin orders Wagner fighters to sign an oath of allegiance as Yevgeny Progogian's death is confirmed. Spain unites against the country's soccer chief in World Cup Kisrael. And how playing your cards right, literally, can win investment in China. It's Monday, August 28th. This is Roitiers World News, with everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes. Every weekday. I'm Tara Oaks in London. And I'm Carmel Crimmons in Dublin.

First, the headlines making news around the world. Authorities in Florida are investigating a weekend shooting as a hate crime. 21-year-old Ryan Christopher Palmitter shot and killed three black people at a Dollar General store in Jacksonville. Palmetter died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. A federal judge is expected to set a trial date today for former President Donald Trump on charges of trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat. Trump is not expected to attend the Washington hearing. Zimbabwe's re-elected president,

Emerson Menangagawa has denied election fraud after winning over 50% of the vote. Two observers groups said police raided their data centres and arrested staff so they could not independently verify the results. The opposition Citizens Coalition for Change said it would not accept the results. Libya has suspended its foreign minister after her Israeli counterpart said he'd held talks with her last week. Libya doesn't have former relations with Israel and news of the meeting sparked protests in Tripoli. Simone Biles keeps notching up the records. the woman Manny considered to be the greatest gymnasts of all time

won a record eighth national all-round title in San Jose on Sunday. The 26-year-old also became the oldest woman to ever finish the championships. Chinese stocks enjoyed a rare Monday rally after regulators halved a levy on stock trading. The move is part of a package of measures to boost the market, including slowing the pace of IPOs, which can often suck up liquidity and depress valuations. Markets need all the help they can get. Data over the weekend showed profits at Chinese industrial firms. fell for the seventh straight month in July.

And shares in China Everbrand, the world's most indebted property developer, fell as much as 87% on Monday when trading in its stock resumed after a 17-month suspension. As foreign funding dries up in China, bankers and businessmen have been forced to rely more on domestic capital.

And the way to unlock that cash often involves a game of throwing eggs, or guandan. The game is played with two sets of poker cards among four players who pair up and race to throw down all their cards. It's an increasingly popular way to build guanxi or connections with officials who hold the purse strings to finance projects, especially those too sensitive for US funding. Neng Tianlu has been following the craze. Tian, why is this game taken off so much in Chinese business?

So previously, Chinese companies and bankers can run. raise funds from the US. But as geopolitical tensions rise between Beijing and D.C., money from the states has become harder and riskier to get. And so because local officials in Jiangsu like to play Guan Dan, so people who want to do business with them find that they have to learn to play the game as well. And this is because this makes it easier to build Guanxi or connection with them. So what does it show about China's economy right now that people are playing card games to make connections for investment? That's a really good question.

So in China, having Kwanxi or connections gives you the extra edge to do almost anything. So from getting to a good school, finding a good job, to getting the best doctor. The business environment has gotten tougher in recent years. So every extra bit of help counts. So like when you play games, like previously people would arrange to meet officials for a meal. They would wine and dine to officials. But when you put the card game before the meal, you can prolong the time that you, the face time that you get with these officials. And if you can show that you're like smart and you can think on your feet and you're like a team player during the game, it might make you stand out more in the eyes of the officials.

Mercenary boss, Yvgeny Progogian, is officially dead. Russian authorities say DNA tests confirm the Progosion, head of the Wagner group, was among the 10 people killed in a plane crash last week, two months to the day that he staged an abortive mutiny. So what's going to happen to his private military empire? Mark Trevelyan has been following the latest for us. Mark, President Vladimir Putin is ordering Wagner fighters to sign an oath of allegiance to the Russian state. Is this the first step in dismantling Wagner? It is, yes, part of this process of bringing these people under the control of the Russian Defence Ministry instead of being this kind of powerful, autonomous separate force, which became the source of enormous tensions while Prigurian was still alive

between Wagner and the Defence Ministry. If you remember this furious running feud that Prigorsin conducted for many months that culminated in his revolt. So what we're seeing now is Putin starting to bring these people back into the fold, telling them, if you're going to continue fighting, it's going to be for the Russian army, not for the Russian army, not for. for this separate fighting force and you're going to be under our control from now on. Will he be able to bring them under his control? Progosion obviously elisted a lot of loyalty from his fighters.

You're right. Procortion, I think, did command a great deal of loyalty from his forces and we can see in some of the reaction on Wagner-related social media channels since his death, there's a lot of anger, there's accusations being thrown out there, the people who are saying that his death is a sort of active treachery. But there's not probably a great deal that these residual Wagner players can do, even if they're angry and upset about what's happened to him.

He was paying their wages. If they want to continue to receive a wage, they're likely to have to do that as part of Russian forces in the future. Without Progogsia at the helm, how much of a threat to Putin is the Wagner group? This is a bit hard to judge at the moment. I think probably not much because the death of Pregozhen, We don't know, of course, who was behind this, but the widespread assumption, a lot of people are saying this was Putin's act of revenge. And of course, the Kremlin denies that. It says that was an

absolute lie. But the perception is that Kregorjan was punished for defying the Kremlin. And that sends a very powerful message to other people who might be tempted to challenge or defy Putin that this can only end badly for them. So I think particularly around the... the preparations and the funeral for Gregoshen, we're likely to hear these sort of outpourings of frustration and anger and loyalty to him. But at the end of the day, Putin is the one who is now more firmly in control than before. We're with you, Jennifer Homozo. That's what players said on a banner at the Spanish Women's Cup soccer final over the weekend.

A storm of criticism has broken out after Homozo was kissed on the lips by Spain's soccer president, Louis Rubiales, after their victory in the Women's World Cup. Rubiales has steadfastly refused to resign over the incident, saying the kiss was consensual. Soccer's world governing body, FIFA, has suspended Rubiales for three months from national and international soccer pending an investigation. Spain's Soccer Federation are due to hold an urgent meeting on the matter today. Fernando Calais has watched the scandal unfold. Fernando, what's likely to happen during this 90-day FIFA suspension? Well, for us to understand what is going on in Spain right now,

we have to understand the political situation and social situation in the country right now. We just have elections, so we are in the middle of these negotiations, so a government can be formed. The current government that is from the Socialist Party, one of their biggest flags is women's rights, is equality. So this is something that has major repercussion in the political sphere in Spain right now. So that's why I think that the government had acted really quickly. We are facing right now probably one of the biggest scandals,

not in the history of Spain, not in the history of football, in the history of sports. What could this lead to within Spain or within women's soccer? Well, I think that Rubiales chose it the worst moment in history, you know, to do this. It was the biggest women's workup in the history of the sports. So many messages, positive messages were being sent. I don't know, record-breaking viewers all over the world. It's one of the few subjects that united the entire society from Spain. There is no one, no one supporting Rubiales.

The entire society is united in a way that we can rarely see in a divided country like Spain, you know, from the last years. So I think it's going to be a turning point in women's right. I think it's going to be the Me Too moment in Spain. 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 favourite podcast player or download the Reuters app.