Reuters World News - Counting the dead in Gaza, Mexican drug labs and urban farming

Episode Date: December 21, 2023

In Gaza, morgue volunteers are trying to keep an accurate tally of the dead – despite a lack of food and water to keep them going. Why Mexico’s data on cracking down on drug labs might not be as impressive as it seems. Hamas’ leader comes to Egypt for ceasefire talks. Plus, the urban farm school trying to breathe fresh air into students’ ambitions. *The description and title of this podcast were corrected to remove an incorrect reference to fentanyl. 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, meet the workers counting the dead in Gaza. Mexico fumbles its fentanyl crackdown. The US and Venezuela swap prisoners, plus the urban farm school trying to breathe fresh air into students' ambitions. It's Thursday, December 21st. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes, every weekday.

I'm Carmel Crimmons in Dublin. And I'm Kim Vinal in Wanganui, New Zealand. The US has said very serious negotiations are taking place on a new Gaza ceasefire and release of more Israeli hostages. Hamas leader Ismail Hanye visited Egypt for discussions with officials who are seeking to mediate another truce. The talks come as the UN Security Council is working on its own resolution to suspend fighting and get more aid into Gaza. A vote has been repeatedly delayed as the US talks with Egypt over how the aid would be monitored. Egypt borders Gaza and has, until recently, been the only entry point for aid to the Palestinian enclave. Workers in a hospital morgue in the Gasan city of Khan Yunus

wrap dozens of corpses each week in white cloth and record the facts of those killed. Some are volunteers who don't even have enough food or water for their families. But they keep going. Maggie Fick worked on a story about the effort. in Gaza to keep an accurate count of those killed, which as of Thursday stands at roughly 20,000 people. So Maggie, tell us about Hamad Hassan al-Najar and what morgue workers like him are going through right now. So every day, Al-Najar, a morgue worker in Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunus, has been responsible for wrapping the bodies that are brought into the morgue,

And El Naja also performs religious rights before the bodies are taken for burial. But something critical for the purposes of the death toll is that each body must be linked to the Palestinian identity card number or have its identity confirmed by a family member. And of course, this is not always possible. So there are the unidentified bodies that stay in the refrigerator of the morgue sometimes for weeks at a time. And in your story, you write about how the body of the morgue's director showed up. at the morgue. What was that like for this hospital worker? So Al-Lajar described that as a horrible shock that was just one of the many traumas that he's

experienced in these weeks of war. He said that one of the hardest thing is seeing bodies of dead children because they're innocence. What are some of the challenges of keeping an accurate death toll during the conflict? The Gazan Health Ministry says at least 20,000 Palestinians have been killed, and the UN and other experts agree that this number is an undercount given the many thousands of bodies that are believed to be buried under the rubble. The main challenge that the Gaza Health Ministry has in continuing to count the dead and release that number is really related to the complete collapse of so many different services and systems in the Gaza Strip. So with internet and phone service disruptions constantly, with many hospitals no longer functional, without fuel, with so many different types of logistical challenges under aerial bombardment, it's very difficult for the health ministry to collect a comprehensive death toll in real time right now.

Alex Saab, an ally of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, has returned to the South American country after being released in a prisoner swap deal with the US. In exchange, Maduro freed 10 Americans and 20 other prisoners linked to the opposition in Venezuela. US prosecutors accused Saab of siphoning off some $350 million from Venezuela via the US and bribing Venezuelan government officials. He had not yet been convicted. Former President Donald Trump has urged the Supreme Court to put off a decision on whether he can be prosecuted

for trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat. Special counsel Jack Smith had asked the court to bypass a federal appeals court and hear the immunity question on a quick schedule. The EU has reached a deal to share the load of migrants arriving at its border. As part of the deal, countries not at the border can choose between accepting

their share of asylum seekers or paying at least $21,000 per person into a joint EU fund. Argentina's libertarian president, Javier Malé, has announced sweeping economic reforms, including steps to privatise companies and end price controls. Thousands took to the streets outside Congress to protest and demand more support for the poor. Poland's new government has launched its new reform drive with a bang, taking a public news channel off the air. critics had alleged that the previous government had turned state-owned media into a propaganda outlet. Over on markets, shares of Toyota have slumped on a safety scandal. Japan's transport ministry has raided the offices of Toyota subsidiary Diatsu,

and the carmaker has separately recalled one million cars in the US. Diatsu says it's going to halt shipments of all of its vehicles indefinitely after discovering safety inspection irregularities. The recall of Toyota cars in the US is over a faulty sensor that could prevent airbags from deploying when they're meant. Mexico says it's cracking down on drug labs supplying fentanyl to the US. Reuters reveals today that despite touting more raids, many of the labs are actually inactive. Dresen Georgic is one of the reporters who worked on the investigation.

Dresen, why is Mexico's data not as impressive as it seems? Mexico claims to have substantially increased the number of laboratories. It is a raiding in recent years. years. But while Mexico claims to have stormed 527 labs in the first seven months of this year, in reality, only 24 laboratories or less than 5% were active or functioning labs. The rest, which is more than 95%, were abandoned labs. Mexico has not been telling its counterparts in the United States just what the split is. So the United States and other countries simply do not know. how many labs were real and functioning that how many were abandoned.

Why are so many of these labs that they're raiding inactive? One theory is that simply Mexico's army is trying to inflate those numbers. The other theory, and this is sort of backed up by conversations with anti-nacotics officials in the United States, as well as former and current traffickers in Sinaloa, who say that often traffickers will pay bribes to the army commanders, who at the same time, we want to show the superiors that they're doing good work. So traffickers will often give up locations of small and inconsequential laboratories or abandoned laboratories to these commanders who then present it as lab raids. So what does this tell us about Mexico's

crackdown on drug trafficking? Last year, about 110,000 people on U.S. streets died from drug overdoses, with about 75,000 of those down to fentanyl. So stopping the flow of illicit fentanyl from Mexico has become a top priority for the Biden administration, which has been ratcheting up pressure on President Anders Manuel Lopez overdose government to intensify the hunt for these clandestine labs. This data may concern many people in Washington who will be worried that Mexico is simply not doing all he can to go after organized crime in a way that stop the flow of ventral coming across the border. But in Mexico, conversely, the issue has been that the previous approach the U.S. has championed in terms of hard crackdowns against drug trafficking

groups has done little to stop the production of drugs and has only increased violence on the ground. So the previous strategy has failed, but the new strategy isn't working either. Mexico's presidency and the Mexican Defense Ministry that tracks the data did not respond to multiple requests for comment. A White House spokesperson said Mexico and the United States are working side by side to address fentanyl trafficking. The rural life of rearing rare breed sheep and milking cows is a world away for many urban teenagers.

But a farm school near Liverpool has opened its pupils to jobs in agriculture and the benefits of nature on mental health. And with UK social mobility at its lowest ebb in over 50 years, the school's work is more important than ever. Pupil Ella Rose Mitchinson was awarded School Farm's Network's student of the year. For her, the farm represents a safe space away from the world of social media and the rigours of teenage life. Coming to the farm helps. It like lets me breathe. Head teacher Rebecca Phillips said she laments that the school is never taken into consideration in the country's academic review system, despite the broader community impact. We have never had

one bit of angelism ever. I think the world. Worst we ever had, I can remember children being in uproar when the child fed a sheep, a crisp. That's it for today's episode of Reuters World News. We'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline 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.