Reuters World News - Hamas’ truce, Gaza rains, Ukraine aid and Cruise’s problems

Episode Date: November 21, 2023

The chief of Hamas tells Reuters the militant group is nearing a truce agreement with Israel. Winter rains are expected to add to Gaza’s misery. Lloyd Austin visits Kyiv, but questions remain about aid, leading the Ukrainian president to turn to Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch. Plus, the latest at OpenAI and the problems at EV startup Cruise continue. 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, Hamas says they're close to a truce with Israel. Ukraine's president turns to the CEO of Fox News for support. General Motors' big bet on driverless cars turns sour. And happy birthday to Japan's whiskey industry. It's Tuesday, November 21st. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes. Every weekday. I'm Kim Vinal in London.

Hamas have said they're near a truce agreement with Israel. The militant group's leader, Ismail Hanier, made the comments in a statement sent to Reuters. He gave no further details. A Hamas official said both sides would free women and children and details would be announced by Qatar. Relatives of some of the hostages held by Hamas and Gaza have urged far-right Israeli lawmakers to stop calling for captured Palestinian militants to be executed. They're worried that even talk of doing so might endanger the hostages. In Gaza itself, winter rains have added to the challenges of heavy bombardment.

Heavy downpours heaping more misery on the estimated 1.5 million people displaced by the conflict in Gaza. Tempory shelters in a refugee camp and Khan Yunus drenched and lashed by winds. One displaced Palestinian Randa Hamud said their shelter had entirely blown away. Michael Ryan is Executive Director of the World Health Organization's Health Emergency Program. It really has been heavy rain. It has flooded a lot of the makeshift camps and it is generating all kinds of risks. And it's not just the risks of diarrheal disease. The sudden drop in temperature is going to create a problem with pneumonia and children.

The stress that those kids are under. the nutritional status that those children have make it a recipe for epidemic. Some investors in OpenAI are considering suing the company's board after it ousted CEO Sam Altman and sparked a potential mass exodus of employees. More than 700 of OpenAI's 770 employees have signed a letter threatening to quit if Altman is not reinstalled. Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi's released video showing armed men dropping from a helicopter and seizing a cargo ship at gunpoint in the southern Red Sea. Israel said the Houthis had seized a British-owned Japanese-operated cargo ship,

describing the incident as an Iranian act of terrorism. The Houthis confirmed that they had seized a ship in that area, but described it as Israeli. A U.S. Federal Appeals Court has effectively barred private citizens and civil rights groups from filing law lawsuits under a landmark civil rights law. The ruling is almost certain to be appealed to the Supreme Court. Colombian pop star Shakira has reached a deal with Spanish prosecutors to settle a multi-million euro tax evasion case. Prosecutors had accused Shakira of failing to pay $15 million in income tax.

As part of the deal, she accepted the charges and a fine of half the amount owed. As if there aren't enough AI stories to go around this week, we have chipmaker Navidia's results out later today. Here's Kamel Krimmins with more. Yes, investors are hoping that the story from the AI chip manufacturer will have a little less drama than the Open AI saga. You may remember that NVIDIA has rowed the AI wave this year. Its chips are used to power AI systems,

and that has helped drive up the entire stock market. So its results will be a real test of that rally. It's expected to produce another blockbuster revenue forecast, The real focus is going to be on US curbs on sales of its chips to China. Are those curbs hampering its business? We'll find out later. US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin made a surprise visit to Kiev on Monday. He brought with him a promise of $100 million worth of military aid and some words of encouragement.

But those are previously allocated funds. And that has Ukraine wondering if they'll be getting more than kind words. Mike Collette White is our editor at large for the Ukraine War. The fact that Lloyd Austin was in Kiev does not necessarily lead to more money and military aid coming to Kiev, and that's what it's really all about. How close is Ukraine to running out of the existing military funding? To be honest, we don't know exactly when the money will run out. I feel that what we're talking about now is not Ukraine getting no money from the West anymore. It's just it's going to be harder to come by.

At the moment, funding from the US is held up. some $60 billion, I think. Also, EU funding running to tens of billions of euros, has not yet been approved. So there's a lot of money that could come, but it is all held up, and what Ukraine has at the moment can't last forever. So that's the tension that they are most worried about. Are there any specifics you can talk us through in terms of the equipment that Ukraine needs, which will no longer be able to get or run or service once that money runs low? I think probably it's the more high-end military technical equipment. So you're talking about complex air defense systems like the Patriots.

You're talking about high-tech drones, for example. But the more expensive equipment, long-range missiles that cost several millions of dollars each, those are the kinds of things they will be most worried about. But at the other end of the scale, of course, Ukraine needs money for the very basics, by which I mean uniformed bullets and artillery shells. What is Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky doing as a result? Well, Zelensky has to keep lobbying the West for support. I think that job is getting harder for him.

And it was really interesting that on the same day that he met Lloyd Austin in Kiev, his office announced that he had met none other than Lachlan Murdoch, the son of Rupert, who is taking over as chairman of News Corp and also the boss of Fox News. As we all know, Fox News is arguably the most powerful pro-Republican part of the US media landscape. And he's looking ahead. Zelensky is looking ahead saying, what if Trump wins the election next year? I need the media on my side. I need the Republicans on my side. General Motors' Autonomous Vehicles project has been in crisis since one of its robotaxies hit a pedestrian in San Francisco last month.

The program, known as Cruz, has been suspended. And in the past two days, Cruz's CEO, Kyle Vote, and the co-founder and chief product officer, Daniel Kahn, have resigned. Joe White is our global auto correspondent in Detroit. So, Joe, how is GM trying to turn things around at Cruise? The question of retaining employees and retaining the talent is going to be a key thing that the new leaders at Cruise are going to be tackling this week and for days and weeks to come. If you're a talented artificial intelligence technologist or robotics technologists, you can work

just about anywhere right now. You don't have to work at an organization that's not going anywhere. So this is going to be a huge challenge for GM and the management at Cruise. How do Cruises travel's way more broadly on GM? The financial implications to GM of the wheels coming off at Cruise. It could be pretty severe, but we don't know what exactly GM is going to do, but absolutely a challenge. And Wall Street does not want to see GM spend a lot more money on this thing if they can help it. How does all of this impact other autonomous vehicle makers? Cruises problems really are indicative of a bigger problem for the whole autonomous vehicle industry.

Waymo and Zooks and other autonomous vehicle companies all have the same sort of underlying problem, which is that there is no real framework for regulating autonomous vehicle. operations. And Cruz has said, well, we need to regain public trust. True enough, no doubt. The problem is that without a clear set of rules that these companies can point to and say, we are complying with these rules. And until there is, I think it's going to be tough for these companies to persuade a lot of people that their operations are safe. Japanese whiskey turns 100 this year. The number of distilleries in the country has doubled in the last decade to match surging global demand.

In one bar in Tokyo, owner, Hiroyuki Shinkai, said they were making an effort to cater to a boom in local craft distilleries. One of the new independent whiskey makers, Shizuoka Distillery, fuel their still with cedar from nearby forests. They say it's the world's only wood-fueled blaze under a whiskey still. That's it for today's episode. of Reuters World News. We'll be back on Wednesday with our daily headline show.

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