Reuters World News - Huge Gaza tunnel, China critic on trial, Hispanic voters lean Trump and big arms deals

Episode Date: December 18, 2023

Israel says it’s uncovered Hamas’ biggest tunnel yet in Gaza. Why pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai’s trial could sour US-China diplomatic relations. Hispanic voters who are leaning towards Donald Trump could be a headache for President Joe Biden. And the US arms makers expecting a strong year in 2024. 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 says it's uncovered a Hamas tunnel built for a large-scale attack. Prominent China critic Jimmy Lai goes on trial in Hong Kong, why Hispanic voters are turning to former President Donald Trump, and the bumper U.S. arms deals expected for 2024. It's Monday, December 18th. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes every weekday. I'm Carmel Crimmons in Dublin. going to enter to the biggest tunnel we found in Gaza.

That's Israel's chief military spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagarri, leading journalists underground. The tunnel he showed reporters is up to 50 meters deep and large enough for vehicles to drive through. The Israeli military says Hamas built it for a large-scale attack. Hagari didn't specify whether it was used for the October 7th incursion. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is doubling down on the offensive in Gaza. saying military pressure is the only way hostages still held by Hamas would be freed.

He was speaking a day after the Israeli army admitted shooting dead three Israeli hostages in Gaza as they held up a white flag. A landmark national security trial has opened in Hong Kong for leading China critic and media tycoon Jimmy Lai. He faces possible life imprisonment on charges he colluded with foreign forces, including the United States. 76-year-old Lai is the founder of now shuttered pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily and one of the most prominent Hong Kong critics of China's Communist Party leadership.

The trial is seen as a key test for the city's judicial independence and freedoms under the sweeping national security law imposed by China in 2020. Jimmy Lai's son, Sebastian, spoke to Reuters in Taiwan. The result is already predetermined. It's a trial with three government-appointed judges. the no jury and the security minister recently boasted of a 100% conviction rate. So at an absolute champ. Hong Kong and Chinese authorities say the city's rule of law is robust

and all are treated equally before it. Jesse Pang is in Hong Kong. How could the trial impact US-China relations? Some activists right now are calling on the US to impose sanctions on Hong Kong judges and prosecutors. a move that could gain in momentum if Lai is jailed for life. These would definitely anger Beijing. And also, the U.S. has called for a lie's release,

and one of my U.S. official sources told me recently that Washington is watching this case closely. A lie, given his friendships with heavy-rate U.S. political figures, lectured over a decade, will remain a focal point for Washington to gauge the situation in Hong Kong. Poisoning the blood of our country. That's what they've done. Donald Trump in New Hampshire, using language about undocumented immigrants that has previously drawn criticism as xenophobic and even echoing Nazi rhetoric. The Republican presidential frontrunner has promised to crack down on illegal immigration if elected to a second term.

And his stance is proving a hit with some Hispanic voters who are switching allegiance from the Democrats in growing numbers. Tim Reed has been reporting on the trend for us. Where does Hispanic support right now sit between Joe Biden and? Trump? Well, it's very interesting at the moment, according to the latest Reuters-Ipsos poll, which came out earlier this month, Trump actually narrowly leads Biden among Hispanics by 38% to 37%. And while most people expect Biden will still attract a majority of Hispanics, the gap between him and Trump has narrowed so much that they could make the difference between Biden winning and losing the election next year because there are a significant number of Hispanic

voters in two big swing states in the southwest, Arizona and Nevada. If you look at Arizona, for example, in 2020, Biden only won Arizona by 10,000 votes. So you can imagine just a little swing in Hispanic support towards Trump this time round could make all the difference. Why are they swinging towards Trump? Hispanics, along with other minorities, were particularly hard hit, first of all, by the COVID pandemic. There are a lot of frontline workers that lost their jobs, or maybe the essential breadwinner in the house couldn't work anymore or even died. And then after COVID, they were hit with the biggest inflation the U.S. has had in 40 years. and so they blame Biden and the Biden administration and Democrats for high inflation.

You also had some reporting about the border wall. Can you tell us a little bit about that? I also spoke to one veteran Democratic strategist and pollster called Ray Texera, who's been studying Hispanic voting patterns for decades. He says a lot of Democrats have mistakenly believed that Trump's very harsh rhetoric about illegal immigration and his attempts to build a border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border is a turnoff for Hispanic voters in the U.S. The Hispanic voters I spoke to when I was down in Arizona recently, they favor a border wall, and they do not find, on the whole, Trump's rhetoric to be racist or xenophobic. They find illegal immigrants alarming because they argue that they and their families came to America legally.

they got in line and they waited years and then they became US citizens and they do not want illegal immigrants coming across the border and taking their jobs when they waited a long time to get legal status here. A sedan smacked into a secret service car

protecting the president's motorcade on Sunday. President Biden and the First Lady were not injured in the incident in Wilmington, Delaware. North Korea has fired a ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States. The missile is a missile appear to have flown about 620 miles before landing in the sea east of the Korean Peninsula.

Chileans have rejected a new constitution that would have pulled the country to the right. It's the second time in 16 months that voters have rejected a proposed constitution. The current text dates back to the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship. Pakistan's jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan has used an audio clip generated by AI to address supporters. The audio drew more than 1.4 million views on YouTube. Floods in the wake of tropical cyclone Jasper have cut off several tourist towns along the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. A crocodile was even captured from a storm drain after Jasper dumped months' worth of rain in Queensland State over the weekend. The yen and Asian stocks are down on markets as traders nervously await the outcome of a Bank of Japan policy meeting on Tuesday.

Markets want to know how soon the BOJ is going to start phasing out its negative interest rate policy. No one is expecting the central bank to move this month. But Governor Uyeda may start laying the groundwork, and the markets are on watch for a surprise after the Fed's dovish turn last week. U.S. military contractors are expecting 2024 to be another strong year. The war in Ukraine, tensions with China, and Israel's offensive in Gaza mean billions of dollars in orders. Mike Stone covers arms manufacturing and is at the Pentagon.

Mike, what are the big moneymakers for these companies? The most profitable weapon to sell is the weapon that you have a hot production line on, that is the oldest technology. So Stinger, Javelin, Amram, Gimler's, which is a ground launch rocket that is popular in Ukraine because it is basically a weapon that allows a small team with a big truck to shoot at entrenched positions 30 miles away. Huge demand is coming for munitions. So think howitzer are.

So brass lead, think rockets. That's where the majority of the demand is coming from, from Ukraine, from Israel, and from everyone else that is donated to Ukraine and everyone else around the world. There's just an enormous amount of munition procurement that's happening that wasn't expected a couple years ago and hadn't been forecast at that time. What happens if Congress can actually agree on an aid deal for Ukraine this week? So what's just happened in the past week is the annual defense. spending bill has been passed. That's the base case that keeps U.S. troops in a readiness state.

The supplemental package for Taiwan, Ukraine, and Israel, it's over and above the base case for just U.S. readiness. It would essentially be a store of tens of billions of dollars that would be spread across multiple years of procurement to backfill weapons that have been sent to Ukraine and Taiwan, it would increase jobs in the United States because a lot of the money actually goes to modernizing and expanding production of munitions to meet the new industrial scale of war. So there's $500 million going to go build a fresh ammunition plant. Texas. So that's brand new jobs, brand new production. That's it for today's episode of Reuters World News. We'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show. To make sure you know what's going on

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