Reuters World News - Israel and Hezbollah, US troop deployment, Biden at UN and China stimulus

Episode Date: September 24, 2024

Note: This podcast has been corrected. A line incorrectly referring to a predecessor instead of a successor was removed. Israel's military says it has struck more Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon, a day after it launched a wave of airstrikes. The United States is sending a small number of additional troops to the Middle East as tensions escalate, but the Pentagon has declined to specify the precise number or mission of the deployed forces. Joe Biden is set to deliver his final address as US president to the UN General Assembly later. China has announced a broad range of stimulus measures to support its faltering economy. The Commerce Department has proposed prohibiting key Chinese software and hardware in connected vehicles on American roads due to national security concerns. You will find our recommended listen, Reuters Econ World podcast, here. Sign up for the Reuters Econ World newsletter here. Listen to our weekend episode on the UN General Assembly here. 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, Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon kill hundreds and send tens of thousands fleeing for safety. Biden addresses the UN as his foreign policy legacy comes into focus. Plus, China goes hard on economic stimulus, but experts warn it may be too little, too late. It's Tuesday, September 24th. 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 Tara Oaks in Liverpool. Saidan in southern Lebanon, as thousands flee north after Israel stepped up its military strikes in the area.

Highways north were gridlocked, vehicles piled high with belongings and families packed into cars and vans. One of those heading to safety is Ahmed, telling us no one is left and that everyone has fled. He says they packed up all their belongings. and may never return. Lebanese authorities say Israeli airstrikes have so far killed nearly 500 people. Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said this operation will continue. I have a message for the people of Lebanon. Israel's war is not with you.

It's with Hezbollah. For too long, Hezbollah has been using you as human shields. Israel's military said it struck across Lebanon, hitting 1,600 targets linked to Iran-backed Hezbollah. below militants. Iran has warned of the irreversible consequences of a wider war in the region. President Massoud Pasechkian says Israel wants to drag the Middle East into a full-blown conflict by provoking Iran. As tensions rise further, the U.S. is sending a small number of extra troops to the region, but without giving specific details. This will reinforce more than 30,000 troops

stationed in the Middle East. But our correspondent Phil Stewart in Washington, D.C., says the lack of detail is unusual. You know, when the United States sends forces around the world, unless it's a covert operation, they almost always disclose the mission and give a rough idea of the numbers. And what's unusual is they've been so forthcoming and disclosing the deployments because they think that it would be a deterrent to outside actors, particularly Iran. If Iran knows the United States has all this capability in the Middle East, they're less likely to enter the war. And so what we're seeing right now is something else. And it's a sign, I think, of this moment we're in where there's so much escalation that the United States just doesn't want to feed into it. Those escalation fears

are a headache for U.S. President Joe Biden as he seeks to carve out a legacy with a speech of the United Nations General Assembly today. It's Biden's last address to the UN as president, and most likely the last big foreign policy speech of his political career. Trevor Honeycutt covers the White House. So Trevor, obviously, this is an important speech for Biden. He's a foreign policy buff. So what will be his foreign policy legacy? Joe Biden came into the White House with grand ambitions of restoring the nation's status and stature as this kind of shining democratic example to the rest of the world that he felt had been tarnished by former President Trump's approach. And so his focus was starting to kind of rebuild some of those alliances that Trump hadn't seen the same value in or

taken the same approach to. And he wanted to do that so that he could focus on the big long-term challenges that the country faces, including dealing with the rise of China. And the huge threat that that poses to, in his mind, the U.S. economy and the global position of the U.S. United States. And what he's found in these years since is that he's been distracted by other issues, by the unexpected invasion by Russia into Ukraine, this big conflagration with Israel and Lebanon and Gaza. And so all of that has kind of put some of these larger ambitions on hold. Boeing says it's made a best and final pay offer to thousands of striking workers, but its largest union has declined to put it to a vote.

IAM District 751 says the playmaker refused to bargain over the proposal that fell short of members' demands. Boeing says the offer has to be accepted by Friday. The Justice Department plans to charge Ryan Ruth, the man who hid with a gun in the bushes of Donald Trump's golf course, with attempting to assassinate a major political candidate. U.S. magistrate Judge Ryan McCabe said prosecutors had documented Ruth's effort to stalk Trump during a roughly month-long period in South Florida, quote, in an apparent attempt to assassinate him. In Bolivia, satellite examination of huge wildfires

suggest this year is set to become the worst on record. Already, the number of hotspots detected since January has passed 70,000. The record was set in 2010, and there were more than 83,000. Fires are also raging in Argentina, Peru, Paraguay, and Brazil, where firefighters have been trying to prevent flames from reaching houses in the Zingu indigenous communities. Microsoft and Constellation Energy have signed a deal to restart the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania. It was retired in 2019. Our US energy correspondent, Lila Kearney, says there will be challenges getting the plant,

which famously had a partial meltdown in the 70s, back online. There has never been another restart of a first. fully shut nuclear power plant. There is another nuclear power plant in Michigan that started the restarting process. So both of these are kind of happening at the same time and going to have to figure out how it works from like a mechanical standpoint and also regulatory to resume operations and putting out energy and connecting to the grid and all that stuff. Central Bank Governor Pangcheng unveiling China's biggest stimulus package since a pandemic in a rare

public briefing. Beijing wants to pull the economy out of a deflationary funk and back towards its growth targets. Common Cremence has more. So this was a broader package of measures than investors had been expecting. It offers more funding and interest rate cuts to stimulate the mortgage market and the stock market. Now, Chinese shares, bonds and the UN did rally after the announcement, but analysts are cautioning that this isn't the bazooka that they think is needed to get Chinese consumers spending again. The reason? A fundamental lack of confidence among Chinese consumers that analysts say may not be alleviated by lowering borrowing costs. And China features prominently in this week's episode of my Econ World podcast. We're looking at predictions for peak oil and how weakening

demand growth from China is playing into it. You can catch it tomorrow on roiders.com, the Reuters app, or wherever you get your podcasts. Or China tries to get domestic customers spending. The Biden administration is proposing a new ban on key Chinese software and hardware in connected vehicles on American roads. The reason? National security concerns. There are not many vehicles coming to the U.S. from China, but the move is a significant one.

David Shepardson covers corporate regulation and explains why. Cars collect a large amount of data about you, even gets your driving patterns. It might know, might suggest, hey, are you heading to work right now, or are you heading to school? So the administration has a lot of concerns about that data and whether Chinese auto companies or the Chinese government could use that data for nefarious purposes. And it really, it breaks down into several different buckets, but the main two are, one, could that data be used improperly to spy on Americans? And secondly, could Chinese vehicles on U.S. roads with that connected software be used for a malevolvement

purpose? But I think it's important to note that this is really a multi-pronged effort by the United States to both address national security concerns and also to block Chinese vehicles from the U.S. market. Their message is, we do not want Chinese vehicles here in large numbers. Today, we have a recommended listen instead of a recommended read. If you've not yet had chance to check out our Econ World podcast, there are episodes looking at the economic principles behind a whole range of topics we've talked about today, including protectionism and Biden's legacy. We'll link a couple of them below for you in the pod description. For more on any of the stories from today, visit reuters.com or the Reuters app.

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