Reuters World News - China’s military parade, Venezuela, Epstein, Chicago and autism

Starting point is 00:00:01 Today, China shows off its might in the country's biggest ever military parade, flanked by Cold War allies. The US kills almost a dozen people in a strike on an alleged drug boat from Venezuela. Thousands more Epstein files are released, and American researchers await new guidance on autism amid fears for vaccine uptake. It's Wednesday, September 3rd. This is Reuters World News. bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes, seven days a week. I'm Kim Vinal in Wanganui, New Zealand. We begin in China, where President Xi Jinping has presided over the country's biggest ever military parade,

Starting point is 00:01:01 to mark 80 years since the end of World War II. 50,000 people watch on as a highly choreographed display of military hardware rolls through Beijing. from intercontinental ballistic missiles to aerial drones and torpedoes and its newest tech, so-called robot wolves, four-legged robots which can replace human soldiers in combat. To end, acrobatic jets fly over Tiananmen Square with coloured smoke plumes and 80,000 pigeons symbolising peace are released. I spoke to Greg Torode, who was watching the parade from Singapore.

Starting point is 00:01:44 It's quite clear that a lot of... lot of people have been struck by the sweep of the technology on display. This time there's a sense that China's deploying, cutting-edge technology to kind of tie all its weapons together. So tanks, for example, had come bristling with air defense systems, with drones attached that can be released. The cyber forces and the information support forces were displaying, there was electronic jamming equipment, there was all kinds of little devices that China was showing off. What was Xi Jinping's message? You're going to have a real problem in a conflict in East Asia because with the large sea drones that we can deploy underwater and

Starting point is 00:02:32 the hypersonic missiles that we can rain down in the near seas, it's going to be very problematic for US ships and even US bases. But Greg says there are question marks over China's full It's been a long, long time since China has fought a war. So a lot of this equipment and technology is essentially operationally untested in terms of conflict. Xi was flanked by Russia's Vladimir Putin and North Korea's Kim Jong-un. Another guest making waves, Kim Jong-un's teenage daughter, fueling speculation she may be his potential successor. U.S. President Donald Trump posting a message to Xi Jinping on truth's social.

Starting point is 00:03:15 saying, please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un as you conspire against the United States of America. The U.S. military has attacked a boat in the Caribbean, killing 11 people on board. President Donald Trump says the speedboat was carrying drugs, and the crew were members of Venezuelan gang Treni Aragua, which the U.S. designates a terrorist group. Phil Stewart is Reuters National Security Reporter and says usually in a drug trafficking incident a boat would be stopped, drugs seized and people arrested, not killed. So President Trump shared a video

Starting point is 00:03:57 and that video looked very familiar to those of us who cover the U.S. military because it kind of harkened back to the wars on terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq where you'd see kind of overhead video from a drone shortly before it takes out a target. But what was really different, about this was it was an isolated, cropped shot of a boat heading through the waters. And all you saw was kind of figures on the boat and then boom, the boat exploding. There's been a build-up of U.S. naval ships in the Caribbean in recent weeks as part of a pledge by Trump to crack down on

Starting point is 00:04:32 drug cartels. The president accuses Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro of controlling this gang. But as reporter Julia Sims Cobb explains, Venezuelan official. reject that. So Venezuelan communications minister Freddie Nanez put on telegram that he thinks the video that Trump posted on his truth social is generated by AI. Reuters actually did an initial verification and we don't see any signs of AI. And then in terms of what Venezuela says about the Trene de Aragua gang, they have said for years that the Trenéardagua no longer exists within Venezuela, that they defeated this gang and while the gang may have started in Venezuela, it no longer has any presence there. Kraft Heinz is splitting itself in two to boost profits and its share price.

Starting point is 00:05:23 Following the breakup, one company will sell Heinz ketchup, Philadelphia and other sources and spreads, and the other grocery products like luncheables and craft singles. The split follows similar breakups by other big food conglomerates, but the jury is out on whether it will be a success. And sticking with markets, Carmel Crimmons is back from vacation, and she's got a new episode of Reuters Econ World out later today. It's all about how the rest of the world is affected by the political storm engulfing the US Central Bank. I guess the question is, is the genie out of the bottle, right? And at what point,

Starting point is 00:05:58 the fact that the genius out of the bottle will it rattle through to markets? And you can catch it on the Reuters app or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Republicans have released 33,000 pages of documents related to disgraced financier and convicted sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein. The files have been a headache for President Donald Trump with a recent poll finding a majority of Americans think the government is hiding things. I spoke to legal reporter Jack Queen, who says much of this release is already public files on Epstein's associate, Galane Maxwell, although he says the release does include some new videos. The most interesting things to my eyes were these videos of interviews that Florida law enforcement

Starting point is 00:06:44 with alleged Epstein victims as part of their investigation into him in 2005 and 2006. And you can't see the girl's faces. They're blurred out and their names are bleep out of the videos. But basically they were describing meeting Jeffrey Epstein and giving him massages. And, you know, it's pretty striking to see the video of those interviews because it really strikes you how young these girls are. I mean, they're like 17 at the time of these allegations. But as far as the shocking or super-volvellatory stuff,

Starting point is 00:07:15 the client list, for instance, that people have been really looking forward to seeing, which may or may not exist, that of course wasn't in there. After weeks of will he, won't he? Trump says he is sending National Guard troops to Chicago to fight crime. Well, we're going in. I didn't say when, we're going in. Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker says the Trump administration is preparing. Donald Trump is positioning armed federal agencies.

Starting point is 00:07:43 and staging military vehicles on federal property, such as the Great Lakes Naval Base. Chicago's mayor says local police won't cooperate, setting up a legal clash. Google won't have to sell Chrome or Android, a federal judge ruled, handing Big Tech a rare win in a major antitrust case. But the court ordered Google to share search data with rivals

Starting point is 00:08:08 to boost competition. The ruling lets Google keep paying Apple billions to stay the default search engine. Shares in both companies jumped after the decision. There are fears that a government-funded study on autism could mean people stop vaccinating their children. Vaccine skeptic and health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is leading an initiative

Starting point is 00:08:32 and is already taking research proposals from those vying for a $50 million grant. Kennedy also says he'll be issuing guidance on autism soon. Health reporter Robin Respott says families, advocacy groups, and researchers will be watching closely. It could have huge implications depending on what that guidance says. If the government were to announce a potential link between autism and vaccines, and to be clear, there have been many studies in recent years looking at this,

Starting point is 00:09:05 and the results have shown so far no evidence of a link between autism and vaccines. If the government were to announce something, the fear is, is that it would have a possible chilling effect among parents and others when it comes time to vaccinate their children. And Robin says that could impact the creation of new vaccines too. The health insurance companies that generally pay for our vaccines could potentially stop covering them for patients because health authorities here no longer recommend them as medically necessary.

Starting point is 00:09:39 And so then you could see maybe pharmaceutical companies start things, start thinking, should we invest in new vaccine research and development if the market is no longer there? And for today's recommended read, a yoghurt and its fans from the other side of the world. Every year, Chinese tourists flock to a Bulgarian mountain village for a late summer festival celebrating its local yogurt, which has become a hit in China. We'll put a link to that story in today's pod description. For more on any of the stories from today,

Starting point is 00:10:21 check out Reuters.com or the Reuters app. Don't forget to follow us on your favourite podcast player. And if you're listening on a smart speaker, just ask for the latest news from Reuters seven days a week. We'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show.

Reuters World News - China’s military parade, Venezuela, Epstein, Chicago and autism

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