Reuters World News - Hostage deal, Altman 2.0, Dutch uncertainty and Thanksgiving politics

Episode Date: November 22, 2023

Israel's government and Hamas have agreed to a four-day pause in fighting to allow the release of hostages held in Gaza and 150 Palestinians imprisoned in Israel. Sam Altman is back as OpenAI CEO. Dutch voters are casting their ballots in a nail-biting election, with the far-right in contention. Plus, how to navigate conversations about Israel and Gaza over Thanksgiving. 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, Israel and Hamas strike a deal to release 50 hostages. Sam Altman returns to Open AI, the Dutch vote in an election that could propel the far right into office. And how to navigate sensitive topics at the dinner table this Thanksgiving as divisions flare over the Middle East. It's Wednesday, November 22nd. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes. Every weekday. I'm Jonah Green in New York. And I'm Kim Vinal in London. Israel and Hamas have agreed a four-day pause in fighting.

The deal will allow the release of 50 hostages held in Gaza in exchange for 150 Palestinians imprisoned in Israel. It will also allow aid to enter the besieged enclave. Gillard Korngold, who has seven family members believed to be held by Hamas, says he's happy but worried. Nobody told me that my family will be there in this deal. Okay. There was 40 children in San Gaza and they go to risk.

Only 30. Where are the others? I don't know. Dan Williams is in Jerusalem. Dan, could this hostage deal if it succeeds be the start of something bigger a move to get more of the hostages out? Israel itself has actually left the door open for that possibility because an annex to this deal is that for every 10 hostages released after the deal by Hamas,

Gaza will get another day of pause, another day without Israeli attacks. So if you do the math, apparently Israel is opening itself up for this pause extending another two or even three weeks. That is significant because presumably that would cause Israeli public opinion, Palestinian public opinion, international public opinion to become habituated too quiet after more than six weeks of very, very severe warfare in Gaza. It could be that will cause a reckoning, a reassessment on all sides. For now, however, Israel is insisting that the war will continue, that the war will resume, and it will stick to its plan of destroying Hamas.

He's back. OpenAI has said it's reached an agreement for Sam Altman to return as CEO. after his ouster. Jeffrey Daston is in San Francisco. The board's plan to oust Altman backfired spectacularly. Not only is he returning as CEO of the company, he is returning possibly with more authority than ever before. The company rallied behind him after his departure with more than 700 of the employees.

That's virtually the entire staff, threatening to quit if he didn't regain his seat as the CEO. And considering all the discussion there had been about divisions over AI safety and commercialization, it seems that everyone now is squarely back behind Altman. The future of OpenEye is much clearer now, but this episode brought to light lots of debate and disagreement within the technology world about how fast we should be moving on AI, what safety concerns there are, and it will continue to be a vibrant area of discussion going forward even with Altman's return. The head of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange has reached a deal with U.S. federal prosecutors that will cost him $50 million

and his job. Shangpan Zhao, the CEO of Binance, will also plead guilty to breaking U.S. anti-money laundering laws, and the firm he founded will pay a $4 billion penalty. The United States has carried out air strikes in Iraq against Iranian-backed militants. It's the first publicly reported U.S. counterattack in Iraq after dozens of recent attacks against troops in the region. North Korea said it successfully placed its first spy satellite in orbit. It's vowed to launch more in the near future, defying international condemnation from the U.S. and its allies.

Argentina's new president-elect once called the Pope an imbecile, the devil's man on earth, and worse. But following his win, right-wing Javier Millet and the Argentine Pope spoke on the phone Tuesday. It's unclear who initiated the call. A severe storm moving up the eastern seaboard looks likely to disrupt the busiest travel period of the year. More than 55. million people are expected to be on the move before the Thanksgiving holiday, with airlines expecting to carry a record number of passengers. It's time now for markets with Carmel Krimmins and Carmel it looks like investors are less gung-ho about the prospect of US interest

rate cuts. Yes, the Fed released minutes from its November meeting showing that officials are in cautious mode and they're wrestling with conflicting economic signals. The Fed is certainly on hold and it would take an inflation shock to get them to consider another hike, but equally they think policy will have to stay tight for some time to come. Currently, the market is pricing in a 29% probability of a rate cut in March and a 60% probability in May. Dutch voters head to the polls today in an election where immigration has been a key issue. A surge in support for the far right could pave the way for veteran anti-Islam politician

Hurt Wilders to enter government. Toby Sterling is in Amsterdam. Yeah, so it's a very tight race among the candidates. The frontrunner for most of the time has been the person who's replacing the outgoing prime minister, and her name is Dylan Yazilgos. She would be the first woman prime minister of the Netherlands, and interestingly, she herself is a Turkish immigrant who came here as a child. There is a chance that Hirtwilders, the anti-immigration, anti-Islam politician, could come in first in these elections, an open question whether other parties would be willing to work with him and form a coalition.

I mean, if he has a very strong finish and he's a clear first-place finisher, then it's going to be very difficult for other parties to exclude working with him without appearing to have rejected the will of the people. Here in the U.S., we're gearing up for Thanksgiving, which also means bracing for some uncomfortable conversations with family members. and the war in Gaza has pushed tensions to an even higher plane. And facing such an incendiary topic could be challenging for some families. So I called up Peter Coleman.

He's a professor of psychology and education at Columbia University, where he also directs the Difficult Conversations Lab. So, Peter, first I want to know, do you anticipate any difficult conversations at your dinner table? You know, it's a good question. I have, my family will be here, but then mostly we have other friends who are coming, one of which is Padrako Tuma, who's an Irish poet and peace builder. So basically we have ringers in the room in case things get intense.

So now we've all learned to kind of talk around politics during the Trump years and the pandemic. But how is this topic unique? Because the major populations that are involved, Jews, in Jews, general, Israel in particular, and then the Palestinian people as well, are people that have suffered centuries of oppression and violence and trauma and displacement. And so these events trigger this sense of insecurity, instability, and trauma. And so it's extremely difficult to talk about them in kind of rational ways or strategic ways because these are both populations of people that are targeted and victimized.

Right, and not likely to solve over mashed potatoes. Right. But I will say it's not the reactions are not unrelated to the political polarization that's happening in this country right now, that oftentimes events that happen, it can be COVID, it can be wildfires, they're weaponized, almost immediately for political gain, by one side or the other, or both. So what's happening here is not unrelated. to the broader cultural context of how we deal with our political differences.

Are there any techniques that you would recommend for navigating such a sensitive topic? I would say to most people, you probably don't want to go there unless the conversation goes there. If you want to go there or if you're thinking about it, really ask yourself, what do you hope to have happen right now? Do you want to trigger others? Do you want to challenge them? You want to show them that you're right. or is there someone at the table from whom you can actually learn and get some insight about either the situation on the ground there or the history or why it's so difficult for so many Americans right now to even have these conversations? That's it for today's episode of Reuters World News.

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