Reuters World News - Haley's exit, Gaza famine, gigafactory attack and Bitcoin’s high

Episode Date: March 6, 2024

Nikki Haley ends her bid for the White House, guaranteeing former president Donald Trump will scoop up the Republican party nomination and face a rematch with incumbent Joe Biden. The UN warns the Gaza Strip is on the brink of famine. Far-left activists claim responsibility for a suspected arson attack which has shut down Tesla's Berlin gigafactory. And Bitcoin and stablecoin giant Tether hit records.    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, Biden and Trump head for an historic rematch after dominating Super Tuesday. Gaza's children are dying as the UN warns of famine. Musk calls suspected arson dumb as Tesla's German gigafactory halts work. And Bitcoin hits all-time highs. It's Wednesday, March 6th. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes every weekday. I'm Christopher Waljester in Chicago. And I'm Kim Vinal in London. Republican Nikki Haley is pulling out of the presidential race, leaving the way clear for

Donald Trump to go head to head with Joe Biden this November. She had just one win in Vermont on Super Tuesday, but Biden and Trump dominated the votes overall, with Biden picking up delegate votes in every state in play. In Minnesota, 19% of Democrats marked their ballots as uncommitted to show their displeasure with Biden's position on Israel and Gaza. So what else have we learned from the primary vote that we didn't already know? Political reporter Jared Renshaw was up late watching the returns, so you didn't have to. Hey, Jared. Hello. How you doing? Good, good. So the headline out of Michigan last week was this size. number of voters marking their ballots uncommitted. What did we see on Tuesday?

You know, Michigan had the advantage of a real weeks-long, months-long effort, really in Minnesota and some other states we saw, but it was a little bit more dispersed, less organized, and quite frankly, just less time. They will argue that they have been successful because Biden and the White House have kind of really shifted their tone a little bit on the issue and been a little bit more forced from MacGAS. So they are claiming victories outside of the election process. So what do we know from the results, from exit polling, that might give us some insight into November? One interesting thing that the Biden campaign is really looking at hard, and probably the Trump campaign, quite frankly, is that Nikki Haley voters have told pollsters after they

voted that they will not support the Republican nominee no matter who it is. Some 81% in North Carolina and some 68% in California told pollsters the same. So that's got to be a big number. And I expect the media to focus on who they are and how serious are they about not voting Republican come November. One thing that's interesting is that polls continually show that people look back and look at the four years of Trump and feel better about it than they did at the time. And that's something that I think we'll see the Biden campaign really try to drive down. You can see more of the key takeaways from Super Tuesday on Reuters.com, as well as on our app. One of the bigger political developments has nothing to do with Super Tuesday.

Arizona Senator Kirsten Sinema says she's not running for re-election. Her decision shakes up the race in a highly competitive state, which is critical to Democrats. if they want to keep the majority. Haiti's prime minister has landed in Puerto Rico, ending uncertainty about his whereabouts since a trip to Kenya. But a question remains on how and when he will return to Haiti, as gangs there call for him to step down. Bitcoin has hit an all-time high,

likely fueled by investors pouring into new U.S. crypto-ethefs. At the same time, the world's biggest stable coin, Tether has smashed its own record with more than $100 billion in circulation. That digital dollar is designed to keep a constant value, so its size may be peaking regulators' concerns. Fintech reporter Elizabeth Howcroft is in London watching both rallies. The last time Bitcoin hit an all-time high was in November 2021, when it reached around $69,000, but then it fell pretty sharply in 2022 as various crypto firms collapsed and investors lost confidence. So to some people in the crypto world, the fact that Bitcoin is back around these all-time

highs is a sign that the industry has recovered from all the problems of the last couple of years. Now, what about Tether? So Tether, having hit $100 billion worth of tokens in circulation, makes it the third biggest cryptocurrency overrule after Bitcoin and ether, and the largest stablecoin. Stable coins like Tether are essentially a way of moving funds through crypto without having to go in and out of dollars in the traditional banking system, but also without having to be exposed to the volatility of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. So why are regulators concerned? Well, various regulators have raised concerns that big stable coins could be a point

at which problems in crypto markets spread into wider financial markets. So, for example, if people rush to exchange their stable coins back into dollars, that could affect the banks who hold those dollar-based reserves. Now, various countries are developing rules around stable coins at the moment, but Tether is not currently subject to specific regulations about its stable coin activities. Work at Tesla's European Gigafactory near Berlin has been halted until further notice after a suspected arson attack. Far left activists, the Volcano Group, have claimed responsibility to the local press, leading Tesla CEO Elon Musk to label them the, quote, dumbest eco-terrorists on Earth.

Christoph Stites is in Germany. Christoph, what can you tell us about the group behind this? What we know about them is that they have a history of interfering with infrastructure in Germany. There have been a few incidents where they claimed responsibility. Police, however, are still trying to verify whether that letter is authentic, but police are investigating. Does this letter make clear Tesla and therefore Elon Musk was the top of the

target of their anger? Yes, definitely. If you read the letter very carefully, a lot of criticism goes against Elon and the way he handles business. If it turns out to be verified, it was a clear attack on Tesla and on Elon Musk, a clear desire to disrupt key infrastructure and raise attention. What's the cost likely to be? They basically said that the damage they expect will be a high nine-digit sum. So that translates into like hundreds of millions of euros and losses. We're trying to verify how they arrive at that number, but it gives you an idea about the level of disruption that has taken place.

And what about the damage to the brand and Germany's brand? I think that is actually the most critical question at the moment. What does this say about C. security of infrastructure in Germany at a time when companies like Intel or TSM are considering or have actually decided in favor of major investments in the eastern part of Germany. Earlier this week, our cameras caught 12-year-old Yazan al-Kafarna in a hospital bed in Rafa. He was on the brink of death. Emaciated his bones protruding, a skeleton of a skeleton of a

boy in a yellow hoodie. His mother, Um Yazan Al-Kafarna, telling us that, before the war, Yazan was a healthy child. Two days after our cameras left, Yazan died, his mother by his side. Only a fraction of the aid needed is getting into Gaza, and children are dying. UN experts say Gaza is close to famine. But what's in a word when so many people are already dying? Michelle Nichols is at the UN. Michelle, what constitutes a famine and who decides when it meets that threshold?

So a famine is classified or declared by a group called the Integrated Food Security Phase classification, which is known in short as the IPC. And that's made up. It's a global scale of one to five. So what is the threshold for something being a famine? So for a famine to be declared, there's three thresholds that have to be met. At least 20% of the population has to be suffering extreme food shortages, one in three children acutely malnourished,

and two people out of every 10,000 dying daily from starvation or malnutrition and disease. So at least 20% of the population in Gaza at the moment, is suffering extreme food shortages, but the other two thresholds haven't been met yet to formally say that there is a famine either throughout Gaza or in certain parts of Gaza. What are the difficulties in assessing whether Gaza in particular, an active war zone, is in famine?

The difficulty comes with getting the data for the other two thresholds, which when the healthcare system has sort of broken down, And it's a little more difficult to establish whether one in three children are acutely malnourished or two people out of every 10,000 are dying from starvation or malnutrition. What difference would it make for Gaza to be declared in famine? As UN officials have regularly pointed out over the years when other countries have been on the brink of famine. Once a famine is declared, it's generally too late for a lot of people in that situation. people are already dying, people are already starving.

All right, that's a wrap on Wednesday's edition. We'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show. If you want to stay up on all the news from around the world, listen in for 10 minutes every weekday. And of course, don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast player or download the Reuters app.