Reuters World News - China's Iran pressure, French farmers protest and ‘Pokemon with guns’

Episode Date: January 26, 2024

Chinese officials have asked their Iranian counterparts to help rein in attacks on ships in the Red Sea by the Iran-backed Houthis. Alabama carries out America’s first nitrogen gas execution. Protesting French farmers edge closer to Paris as the far right seeks to capitalise on the demonstrations. Plus, ‘Pokemon with guns’ – a controversial new video game goes viral. 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 presses Iran to rain in Houthi attacks in the Red Sea. Alabama carries out Americans' first nitrogen gas execution, protesting French farmers edged closer to Paris, and cute creatures with guns create a video gaming for Rorei. It's Friday, January 26th. 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 Liverpool.

Chinese officials have asked their Iranian counterparts to help rain in Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea. That's according to exclusive Reuters reporting. The ongoing attacks have raised the cost of shipping and insurance by disrupting a key trade route between Asia and Europe. Beijing reportedly told Tehran it risked harming business relations with China. Don Durfey is foreign policy editor in Washington, D.C. Don, your reporting has found out that China has been in talks with Iran. Can you tell us what the team found out? Yeah, we've reported from sources in Iran and others as well that China has been talking to Iran to get Iran to persuade the Houthis to hold back on their attacks on Red Sea shipping.

The United States had also had previously been in touch with China on several occasions to ask them if they would use their influence over to Iran. and so it seems to be that that's been having some effect. Why would China want to do this? So for China, you know, China is one of the world's biggest exporters. It's also one of the biggest consumers of oil. So chaos in the Red Sea certainly affects China, right? So it is in China's self-interest to see the Houthis pull back on their attacks. China has another interest, which is the deeper the U.S. gets pulled into the chaos of the Middle East,

the more China could see that to its own benefit. because the U.S. reputation has really taken a hit among developing countries, which is the same group of countries that China wants to develop closer relations with. So for China, it's a little bit of a split issue. Do the discussion say anything about the state of that relationship between China and the U.S.? The relationship between the U.S. and China has been more stable since Xi Jinping and Joe Biden met in San Francisco back in November. So it's very possible that China is more ready to heed some of the U.S. requests. That said, the U.S. officials that we've spoken to are skeptical of how aggressively China is really going to push Iran on this issue. And do we have any idea about Iran's response

to China's pressure? It's unclear. We've spoken to a spokesperson for the Houthis who say that Iran has not spoken with them about pulling back on attacks. And certainly if you look at the record, the attacks are pretty much daily. So there's really no sign that we can see that the conversations have had any kind of effect on the Houthi's actions. Alabama has carried out the first American execution using nitrogen gas. At 753 central time tonight, the state of Alabama started carrying out the execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith by nitrogen apoxia. The state has touted asphyxiation as a simpler alternative for prison systems struggling to find veins

or the required drugs for lethal injections. Human rights groups and United Nations torture experts had sought to prevent the execution saying the method could lead to an agonizing death or non-fatal injury. Alabama Corrections Commissioner John Hamm said Smith held his breath in vain. There's also information out there. He struggled against his restraints a little bit,

but there's some involuntary movement and some agnial breathing, so that was all expected. It was the second time, Alabama had tried to kill the convicted murderer. In 2022, officials aborted his execution by lethal injection after struggling for hours to insert an intravenous lines needle into his body. A bipartisan Senate deal to pair border enforcement measures and Ukraine aid faces potential collapse.

Senate Republicans are growing increasingly wary of opposition to the deal from former President Donald Trump, the likely Republican presidential nominee. Taking off. Goosebombs. NASA's robot helicopter has made its last flight to Mars. The Space Agency has announced that ingenuity can no longer fly because of rotor blade damage. Originally intended as a tech demo, it proved that powered flight was possible in the thin

Martian atmosphere. The United States has created a channel with Israel to discuss concerns over civilian casualties in Gaza. Later today, the United Nations' top court is expected to rule on a call for Israel to suspend its attacks in Gaza. A ruling could increase international pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. We will be looking at the pressure on him and the state of Israeli politics generally in a special weekend podcast. So keep an air out for that. Hit by crumbling stock and property markets at home, Chinese investors are increasingly turning to Bitcoin. But it's banned in mainland China.

Vidya Ranganathan is in Singapore. Vidya, how are investors in China buying Bitcoin and other assets. What Reuters discovered is that there are workarounds. You could go to one of the multiple online payment platforms, the fintech platforms, and put your money there, transfer that to one of the crypto exchanges and get your USD tether, which is a stablecoin. That means then you're in cryptosphere. And once you're in cryptosphere, you can just exchange those stable coins for Bitcoin or Ether or any of the other cryptocurrencies. So it all seems pretty easy. The The other way the Chinese are able to buy Bitcoin is by taking little sums of money to Hong Kong. And you could go into any of the crypto shops in any mall and hand over your $50 or your $100 and get crypto.

No identity required. What does Beijing say about all this? From our conversations, it does seem like people on the mainland thing, Beijing realizes that Bitcoin has potential. Beijing is seeing Singapore and New York develop as big crypto hubs. And it's saying Hong Kong is our backyard. Let's see what happens there. Thinking of a weekend in Paris? Well, so are thousands of protesting French farmers.

They're set to block highways into the capital as their demonstrations spread across France. They say they are trying to press the government to loosen regulations and protect them from cheap imports and rising costs. Michel Rose is in Paris. Michel, this is the first big test for new French Prime Minister Gabrielle-Atal, right? How is he likely to react? Absolutely. He said that he want to be a prime minister who listens to unions, and that wasn't necessarily the case for the early administrations of President Macron.

But yesterday there was a leak about the French intelligence agency saying that there needs to be a solution very quickly because it could really escalate and become violence. And far right leader, Marine Le Pen, has accused a group. government of complacency and backing regulations that hurt farmers. How successful have the far right been so far in winning the farmers to their cause? Yeah, it's a complicated issue because basically farmers are usually vote for right-wing parties. But when I talk to farmers, they said this time if I vote for Le Pen, it's going to be more of a protest vote rather than because I think she's got the right solutions for me. But it's true that Le Pen and her party have, have really tried to capitalize on this movement, and the government is on the back foot.

A video game described as Pokemon with guns has caught the gaming world by storm. But not everyone is happy with it. Sam Nussi is in Tokyo. Sam, tell us about the game. Yeah, so Power World is a survival adventure game. It's from a little known Japanese developer called Pocket Pair. And the game has really gone viral since it launched on the 18th of January. The game incorporates mechanics from a range of different genres, but the perceived similarities in areas like character design with the Pokemon franchise, along with the ability to use weapons in Power World, have caused a lot of debate on social media and elsewhere.

So these creatures you can train, they're very cute, but there's a darker element to the game, right? Yeah, that's right. So the Pokemon series is very family-friendly. You catch the creatures and you train the the creatures. But there's another aspect to Powerwild, which is the use of weapons. So you can use these weapons when you're interacting with the environment, but you can also use them against the creatures. I mean, you can kill them with a knife. You can eat them. So yeah, I mean, there are very sad places of the games that you would never see in a Pokemon game. And that's what's generated a lot of debate on social media. Wow. And how has the Pokemon company reacted? Yeah. So the Pokemon company put out a statement saying it would investigate and take

take measures to address any infringement of its intellectual property related to Pokemon. And what about PocketPair? They've been getting a lot of criticism online from some Pokemon funds, right? Yeah, well, PocketPair has really suddenly been thrust into the spotlight. And the CEO of the company, Takuro Mizobe, has said on social media that artists involved in the game have been the target of libelous comments and social media posts that he describes as close to death threats. And he's called for such comments to stop. That's it for today's episode of Reuters World News. Don't forget to check out our weekend episode on how the war in Gaza is affecting Israeli politics.

And we'll be back on Monday with our regular 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.