Reuters World News - Gaza aid deaths, South Africa's toughest gig and South Korea's birth rate

Episode Date: March 1, 2024

Israeli troops opened fire on Palestinian civilians during a chaotic attempt to get humanitarian aid into Gaza. Dan Marokane is taking on what’s been described as the toughest job in South Africa ��� running energy provider Eskom. A Palestinian pop singer hopes to compete for Iceland at Eurovision. And why South Korea’s record low birth rate is plumbing new depths. 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, despair in Gaza as the death toll passes 30,000, including dozens killed waiting for aid. The new boss of South Africa's energy provider starts in the country's toughest job. South Korean women defy government efforts to push them towards motherhood. And a Palestinian singer in Iceland gets closer to his Eurovision dream. It's Friday, March 1st. is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes every weekday. I'm Kim Vinald in London and I'm Carmel Crimmons in Dublin. Palestinians rushed to get their loved ones to hospital after violent scenes in northern Gaza.

Israeli forces opened fire on civilians during a chaotic attempt to get aid into the enclave. Local health officials say more than 100 people. were killed. The Israeli military says most of the victims were trampled or run over in the rush to secure food. This man said his brother was wounded trying to get bread for his kids. The latest bloodshed adding to the grim milestone of over 30,000 now dead in Gaza and spiraling desperation for those left behind. So instead of playing politics with the issue, why do we just get together and get it done? President Joe Biden challenging Donald Trump to help him secure the southern border. Biden and Trump made dueling trips to Texas border towns on Thursday,

seeking to leverage what's expected to be one of the biggest issues of the 2024 presidential race. Crowds gather at the scene of a massive fire in Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka. At least 45 people died in the inferno, which started in a biryani restaurant and raced through a six-story building. Iranians are voting in the first election since anti-government protests in 2022. The polls are seen as a key test of support for Iran's clerical rulers. Dan Maricone, the new boss of South African energy provider ESCOM, has a big job ahead of him. For starters, when's he going to turn the lights back on?

ESCOM is hampered by debt, accusations of corruption, sabotage and coal theft. And rolling blackouts are crippling South Africa. Joe Bavier is in Johannesburg for Marconi. first day. Joe, this job has been described as the worst in South Africa. Well, it's an extremely high-pressure job. The company is in really dire financial straits. It's also suffering from regular technical failures and mechanical breakdowns that lead to nationwide blackouts. And fixing those problems are extremely difficult. It requires a lot of money that the organization doesn't have. It's living bailout to bailout at the

moment and the government is run out of patience, basically. So it's really just a massive undertaking for anyone. And the company's seen a revolving door of CEOs for the last 15 years, more than a dozen. None so far have really managed to fix the thing. One of those predecessors was even poisoned by cyanide. Tell us about that. Well, his predecessor, André de Reuter, was really on a mission to stamp out crime and corruption within the organization. So you're talking about criminal gangs that are involved in stealing coal or who have shady agreements for transportation. And, yeah, when you start messing with their livelihood, there's a risk that they'll push back. And that's one of the theories around what happened to André de Reuter.

What do ESCOM's woes mean for everyday South Africans? We've had daily rolling blackouts. So these are scheduled blackouts that, are designed to ensure that the grid is not overwhelmed. So periods of two-hour blocks, usually sometimes four-hour blocks. And that affects everyone. It's private residences, it's businesses, but it's also things like hospitals and schools and traffic lights. So things just stop working.

My name is Bashar Murad. I'm a Palestinian pop artist from Jerusalem. A Palestinian pop singer from Jerusalem is singing at the year. Eurovision Song Contest for Iceland. That is Bashar Murad's dream. In 2007, my dad and my mom actually made an effort part of Sabrine, which later became a non-profit, an effort to try to get Palestine into the Eurovision. He's not representing Palestine, but his dream of being on stage at the finals is closer

to reality, thanks to this. Wild West is Bashar Murad's bid for Eurovision. It's a collaboration with members of the Icelandic band Hatari, who have a connection to Gaza. They raised a banner showing Palestinian flags during the 2019 Eurovision. I contacted my friend Enad from Hatari, and I messaged him and I asked him, if you have to be Icelandic in order to compete in the Icelandic singing competition. and he quickly checked the rules and we discovered that you did not have to be Icelandic,

you just have to perform the song in Icelandic in the semi-final. Eurovision attracts millions of TV viewers around the world, but it builds itself as a non-political event and can disqualify those it considers to be in breach of that. The song is about not letting imaginary and physical borders define us or confine us. The war in Gaza weighs heavy as a backdrop this year, with Eurovision organizers so far resisting calls for Israel to be excluded,

although they have been scrutinizing its song, as it might refer to the October 7th attack by Hamas. The final of Iceland's competition is this Sunday. That's when Bashar will find out of this journey continues to Sweden and Malmo, where the Eurovision finals are held in May. South Korea has long had the lowest fertility rate in the world. Billions has been spent by the government trying to get women to have more babies. But the latest figures out this week show the rapid decline in the birth rate is only continuing.

Josh Smith is in Seoul. So Josh, why aren't women having kids? A lot of the reasons that we hear from women in particular is the overall burden. both financially as well as the impact it has on their jobs and careers and their basically opportunities to have life outside of having kids. Here in South Korea, there is a lot of women are particularly well educated, but then there's also a major disparity between the work that they do in the home between the women and men, and that's often very cited by women.

And at the same time, both men and women also cite basically just sheer high costs in South Korea. While the government has tried to give more financial incentives to couples to have children, it remains one of the countries where people spend the most to raise children. For example, a lot of spending on private education, cram schools, things like that, in kind of a hyper-competitive educational and work situation. Are women telling you that they're able to find partners, or is it a matter of, you know, there are lots of people are married, but they just don't want to have kids? It's both.

So marriage rates have also fallen a lot, and both men and women kind of complaining about the difficulties of finding people who share their values, both politically, as well as kind of being on the same page when it comes to family and work and sharing the load. I'm sure there are a lot of women around the world, and men, two who are listening, nodding their heads going, well, that's the same here, you know, really identifying. Are there any reasons for this that are really specific to South Korea culturally? I think, as you note, I mean, you know, some of these issues will sound very familiar to people around the world. But in some cases, the data does show that some of these challenges

are particularly acute in South Korea. For example, the gap between men and women when it comes to the impact that having kids has on their career is really striking and severe in South Korea. Why is the low fertility rates such a concern for the government? It's expected to have widespread impact on everything from obviously things like the country's pension system. And then there's the military, for example, here relies heavily on conscripts. They're having to transition and rethink how they man their large military here that faces off with North Korea to the North. And it's also kind of sparking some thinking about the country's immigration system, which has tended to be pretty restrictive.

That's it for today's episode of Reuters World News. This weekend, though, we've got something special for you, an episode where we go beneath the surface of the upcoming U.S. election. We know that barring anything major it's going to be a Biden-Trump rematch, with much of their support already baked in. But what that means is voters in a handful of states could have an outsize impact. Find out who they are and what they care about on our special weekend episode, dropping Saturday.