Reuters World News - DNC protests, Venezuela’s opposition and UK Black community fears

Episode Date: August 19, 2024

Democrats are gathered in Chicago to celebrate Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign for the White House, but the start of the four-day Democratic National Convention is expected also to draw tens of thousands of protesters. Venezuela's political opposition and its supporters have gathered in cities around the country to demand recognition of what they say is their candidate's resounding victory in a presidential vote nearly three weeks ago. How recent riots have opened old wounds for Britain’s black community, with fears of further racist violence.  Find our recommended read here. Sign up for the Reuters Econ World newsletter here. Listen to the Reuters Econ World podcast here. Find the Recommended Read here.   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, Blinken says the latest push for a Gaza ceasefire is a decisive moment. Demonstrations welcome the DNC to Chicago. Thousands protest Venezuela's election, but time is running out to overturn the result. And how racist violence during the UK riots has reopened old wounds in the black community. It's Monday, August 19th. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in just 10 minutes every weekday. I'm Tara Oaks in Liverpool.

First stop, Chicago. Pro-Palestinian protesters taking to the streets on Sunday on the eve of a Democratic National Convention. Thousands more demonstrators are expected today. Many of them are opposed to the Biden administration's support for Israel's Gaza offensive. But away from the streets, Democrats are set to celebrate Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign

for the White House against Republican. Donald Trump, and to honor President Joe Biden, whose exit from the race has turned his party's fortunes around. Our very own Christopher Wooljusper is there all week. Hi, Chris. Hey, Tara. So Chris, the Harris campaign so far has been focused on vibes rather than policy, right? So what are the vibes like right now in Chicago? Yeah, so over the weekend, I went downtown and really you could sense the excitement. There were people everywhere, spectators, volunteers, but there were also a lot of security professionals. Chicago police, private security. We've heard from both security officials, as well as protest organizers, that they're really working to ensure a peaceful gathering

where people can speak their minds, but there's still a level of order. But we're expecting a lot more protesters today, right? Something like 10,000 against the Gaza war. I mean, are people worried it's going to be 68 again? There is some worry about that. Folks I've spoken to who have to work downtown all week have expressed a concern that things could get out of hand. So we'll just have to see what today looks like and the rest of the week. But, you know, the big event really today is President Joe Biden is speaking to kick off the convention. And a lot of folks are excited to see the tone that he sets and really how the party and the nation responds to how he, you know, transfers power to Vice President Harris.

Thank you so much, Chris. Now go get some sleep. All right. Well, I looked forward to talking to you the rest of the week. To hear more about what to expect from the DNC, tune in for updates every day from Chris and listen to our weekend special podcast, which was published on Saturday.

This is a decisive moment. Probably the best, maybe the last opportunity. U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken during a meeting with Israeli President Isaac. Herzog as he returns to Tel Aviv on his latest push for a ceasefire. The marathon talks are set to continue this week in Cairo. For just hours after Blinken landed in Israel, Hamas accused Israel of thwarting the mediator's efforts. Blinken is due to me Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later today.

The Philippines and China have accused each other of ramming vessels and performing dangerous maneuvers in the South China Sea. China's Coast Guard said a Philippine vessel which had ignored its repeated warnings deliberately collided with a Chinese vessel in the disputed waterway early on Monday. The Philippines disputed Beijing's account and accused it of imposing its version of the facts. Sticking with the Philippines, the country has detected a new case of the Mpox virus, its first since December last year. The Health Department has said it's still awaiting test results before being able to determine

the strain. Over on markets, stocks are flat after big jumps last week. And we have Carmel Crimmons back from vacation to explain why. Did you have a nice break, Carmel? I did, Tara. Three weeks of getting no respect from the kids, so it's nice to be back somewhere where people at least pretend to listen to me. We're so glad to have you back. And markets have been having quite a time of it since I was away, right? Indeed. And the big moves continue. U.S. stocks had their best week of the year last week, and that's after that nose dive at the start of the month. What's driving it? So positive data is persuading investors that a US recession is going to be avoided,

and they're convinced that the Fed is going to start cutting rates in September. Market activity this year has really been driven by the likelihood of Fed rate cuts, and so with the Fed hosting his annual getaway in Jackson Hole this week, all eyes are going to be on chair Jerome Powell when he speaks on Friday. Wall Street's betting that he's going to confirm a rate cut, and if the street doesn't hear what it wants to hear, then that could trigger a big sell off. So hold on to your hat, Tara.

Oh, I will. Thousands of supporters of Venezuela's political opposition in Caracas on Saturday, cheering Maria Corina Machado as she was driven through the streets. She'd been in hiding after being accused of insurrection, but joined calls for Edmundo Gonzalez to be declared the winner of the election. President Nicholas Maduro remains defiant and claims he won the vote. So where now for the opposition after three weeks of dispute? Julia Sims Cobb is covering this story.

So the opposition has some options, but those options are definitely narrowing as time goes on. They are still pushing for the government to release a full vote count, and they are also encouraging people to continue to demonstrate in the streets and keep that internal pressure going. But it doesn't seem like the government is going to release those full tallies. And the international response, which is also something that the opposition has been relying on for support, is a little bit laxedesical at this point. But some of those regional countries, including Brazil, have also floated things like a new election or power sharing. Colombia's president has said that maybe the opposition and the ruling party could trade off leadership of Venezuela. All of those

suggestions have been rejected by both the ruling party and the opposition. So why can't this movement for change by the opposition work in the same way as, say, Bangladesh, where protests led to a change of power. So Venezuela has historically seen some mass anti-government protests in 2014, in 2017, in 2019. None of those waves of protests succeeded at unseating Maduro. And it's beginning to look like these current protests might end up the same way. We're seeing a lot less attendance at these protests than we were, say, on the Monday or Tuesday after the election. And that's mostly due to the government crackdown, right? There have been 23 people killed at these protests, the government has called protesters fascists, that they're extremists.

When Reuters Energy and ESG editor, Sharon Kamathi, wrote a personal piece in an early August newsletter about riots that had swept the UK. She didn't expect the response she got. Sharon was hit hard by the violence and online hate and has been telling us how she discovered a wider concern in the black community about its long-term impact. So I had to cancel my plans with my friends. I wasn't able to live. leave the house. I was just generally feeling quite fearful and it sort of messed with my own mental health and that feeling of security at home. So I wrote this for my subscribers and there was a wave of support that came from them and also my wider community. What the conversation seems to be

happening in most households is how much this has thrown us back to those days when we saw our parents, our elders going through this. So it was a general feeling of fear, anxiety. As one of them put it, Ngozi Falani. She's the CEO and founder of Sister Space, a London-based charity. They said that this was a trauma and a re-trauma because they could remember what it was like to be there in the 80s. But I didn't want to just keep a London-centric focus.

I also spoke to Corshick Mystery, the CEO of a Liverpool-based foundation called the Anthony Walker Foundation, which was created after the racist killing of a 18-year-old black boy in 2005. Suddenly, you're a prisoner, in your own home, in your own country, in the place where you live and work and contribute to that society. He said that he usually has about 50 referrals per week about racist or religious hatred, but now it's surged to more than 300 people. One of my sources did say she had an Instagram post that was,

sort of circulating around the black community. And she basically said, you know, as people of colour in the UK, we all know we're not 100% safe in any given day. But we can usually expect to have a relatively ordinary day. But it's the fact that these people came out of the dark and they're showing us that we were never safe and that it could get worse. So that's what's disturbing.

Before we go today, time for a shout-out for our recommended read. Today's is all about Tahiti, the remote island where Olympic surfers faced off this year and where locals are fighting to protect a reef and their way of life. There's a link to it in the pod description. More on any of the stories from today's episode, check out Reuters.com or the Reuters app. We'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show.

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