Reuters World News - Deadly blaze in South Africa, recycling fast fashion and the British Museum’s theft scandal

Episode Date: August 31, 2023

Dozens of people are dead after a fire at a building in Johannesburg. The British Museum’s theft scandal is reigniting calls for the return of the Parthenon Marbles to Greece. Fast fashion tries to tackle its waste problem. Plus, Florida cleans up after Idalia and UBS warns of 3,000 job cuts. 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, dozens dead in a building fire in Johannesburg. Idalia heads north after lashing Florida. A theft scandal at the British Museum revives calls for the return of the ancient Parthenon Marbles to Greece and Fast Fashion's Recycling Challenge. It's Thursday, August 31st. This is Reuters World News with everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes every weekday. I'm Kim Vinal in London. We start in Johannesburg, where dozens of people are dead

after a fire tore through a derelict apartment block occupied by homeless people. A woman cries out in grief as body bags line the sidewalk. Tim Cox is in Johannesburg. Tim, what's the latest? Emergency services are still evacuating the building, and this is still smouldering so the toll could go up. It's undoubtedly it has to be one of the worst fire tragedies the city's ever seen. Can you tell us about this building? I know it's known as a hijacked building. What does that mean?

Yeah, hijacked buildings is a phrase that's used here to refer to buildings that have been occupied illegally by squatters. Usually with nowhere else to go. We still have an explicit statement to the effect that the occupants were squatters. But the officials from the city of Johannesburg are certainly talking as if they were. That phrase kind of shifts the blame for the city's housing problem onto the squatters. They say they're breaking the law by occupying these derelicts. buildings, which then become associated with social problems like crime, drugs and prostitution. These, of course, are buildings that don't have, if they have any power supply at all, don't have a reliable one.

So people rely on things like candles and wood fires for heat. But as it stands, there's no word on exactly what the cause was. Now to the other news making headlines around the world. A massive cleanup operation is underway in Florida after Hurricane Edalia. A surge of storm-driven sea water rushed inland for miles, but the damage is less than feared. Idalia has been downgraded to a tropical storm as she makes her way through the Carolinas. Celebrations on the streets of Gabon's capital, Libreville, after the military seized power. General Bryce Olegui and Guema has been named as the West African country's transitional leader.

Neighboring countries and others around the water, said they're monitoring the situation closely, with the US describing it as deeply concerning. Chinese President Xi Jinping is likely to skip the G20 summit in India next week. The summit had been viewed as a potential opportunity for Xi and Joe Biden to meet and work on stabilizing relations. For a second time in just over a month, the top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell has frozen in front of reporters. The 81-year-old went silent for more than 30 seconds after being asked about running for re-election. It's time now for markets with Carmel Krimmins. Carmel, what's going on today?

Well, it's a bad day to be a banker in Switzerland. UBS has come out and said it expects to cut 3,000 jobs over the next few years as it absorbs Credit Suisse. You may remember UBS had to do an emergency takeover of its hometown rival earlier this year. It's one of the biggest mergers ever in finance. and it increased their overall workforce by about 45,000 people. Now, the bank itself right now is doing really well. Its shares have climbed this year, but there are obviously huge risks with this integration,

and UBS wants to cut costs by more than $10 billion, hence the job cuts. That's the sound of a sorting point for used clothes near Barcelona, starting a journey to recycle them for new products. It's part of growing efforts in Europe to tackle the mountain of fast fashion waste with the actual clothing companies on board. So can you shop guilt-free?

Helen Reid in London has been following the story. Helen, how are fast-fashioned giants involved in this? So the owner of Zara, which is called Inditex, has actually given money to Moda Ray, which is the organization that runs this plant in Barcelona. and Moda Re is actually expanding its capacity, expanding its sorting plants so that it can handle much more tons of clothing. Their aim is to increase the share that goes to be recycled and to decrease the share that is exported. So currently the EU exports a lot of secondhand clothes to African countries in particular.

and that is a problem that the European Commission has flagged because a lot of the countries that receive these exports do not have the capacity to sustainably manage the used clothes and so they end up in dumps polluting the local environment. What's the EU's plan in terms of regulation? So the European Commission has proposed laws that would see fast fashion companies become responsible for the textile waste that the industry produces. Each fashion company would be charged a fee per garment they sell in the EU. The commission has said it would be about 12 cents per t-shirt, but that would be higher if it's a garment that's harder to recycle. Companies are quite concerned

about it being applied in different ways in each EU member state, but it would mean that Fast fashion companies are incentivised to produce clothes that are made of recycled fibres because they would likely be charged at lower fee for those clothes. Before you get too excited about buying clothes made from recycled fibres, here's a sobering stat. Less than 1% of garments are currently recycled that way. So you have a while to wait. A theft scandal at the British Museum is really, reigniting calls for the return of the ancient Parthenon marbles to Greece. The two and a half thousand-year-old artifacts were taken from the Parthenon Temple in the early

19th century and are on display in the iconic London institution. But the museum has been rocked by revelations that thousands of artefacts were stolen from it over a long period. Alistair Smout is in London reporting on the story. Alistair, this doesn't look good for the museum. where did they go from here? So firstly, they need to recover the missing items. They've also announced an independent review to look at security arrangements,

and I'm sure that will also consider how to make sure any concerns raised are handled in a timely and comprehensive manner. What does the scandal mean for some of their most famous artifacts, the Parthenon Marbles? This incident has reignited the debate over the Parthenan Marbles, with some arguing that one of the museum's central content, that it is a safe space for articles of immense historical and cultural value has been undermined. However, some British lawmakers have said that is false to conflate the two.

And interestingly, the Greek government has been quite restrained in drawing parallels as well, suggesting that they don't want this incident to distract from fairly constructive talks that have gone on so far this year. If the talks have been fairly constructive, how likely are we to see a deal on their ownership? So there's been warm words on both sides, but I think there's a lot of debate over the exact form of any deal. So Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has ruled out changing a law that says the British Museum can't dispose of its holdings except in some special circumstances. But both sides think there is a deal that could be done, even though Greece wants a permanent return. So a campaign group called the Parthenam project has a proposal that they could enter into.

a long-term cultural partnership. There sees marbles returned with a rotating cast of Greek artifacts coming the other way, but it avoids words like permanent and leaves the concept of ownership unresolved. So some sort of fudge is perhaps most likely if there is a deal to be done. Now, do you fancy a pizza? How about going to Domino? Yes, that's right, without the S. A Russian restaurateur and pro-Kremlin rapper have teamed up to take over the Russian assets of Domino.

's pizza. Anton Pinsky and Timiti said they would run the restaurants under the barely changed brand Domino pizza, with the iron domino replaced by the equivalent Russian letter. The exodus of Western brands from Russia after the invasion in Ukraine has led to several high-profile rebrandings. Lego stores becoming World of Cubs, crispy cream morphing into Crunchy Dream, and McDonald's restaurants being relaunchy. as Vukuzno and Tochka, or tasty, and that's it. Rapper Timati said the pair hope to replicate the success of their venture, Stars Coffee, which replaced, you guessed it, Starbucks.

That's it for today's episode of Reuters World News. We'll be back with our daily headline show on Friday. 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 first. favourite podcast player or download the Reuters app.