Reuters World News - Israel boils over Netanyahu’s court plans

Episode Date: March 27, 2023

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under huge pressure to halt a judicial overhaul plan after mass protests and civil unrest. Washington plays down the nuclear threat from Russia. Mississippi mourns after a tornado kills at least 25 people. A deal for Silicon Valley Bank. As Israel churns, we look at the plight of young people in Gaza, risking death to leave or a slide into extremism if they stay. The Californian farmer fighting drought with floods. And finally, an update from the man who married his AI chatbot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, Israel's government plunged into chaos after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fires his defence minister triggering civil unrest. Will he go through with the judicial reforms at the heart of this domestic crisis? Washington plays down concerns as Putin turns up the nuclear heat. And as Israel churns, the jobless youth in Gaza risking death to leave or a slide into extremism if they stay. It's Monday, March 27th. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes.

I'm Kim Vinal in London. We start in Israel, where Benjamin Netanyahu's government is in disarray over a bitterly contested judicial overhaul. Hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets overnight after Netanyahu sacked as defense minister, Joav Galant, for breaking ranks over the reform. Crowds broke through police. barriers outside Netanyahu's residents in Jerusalem and blocked a multi-lane highway in Tel Aviv. Gallant was fired after he made a televised address calling on the government to halt the judicial reform. The law would effectively give Netanyahu's coalition more control over the appointment of judges

and has triggered mass protests over fears it could weaken the country's democracy. It's unclear what will happen to it. An official from Netanyahu's Le Kud Party told Reuters he was expected to halt the passage of the law. But in Parliament, Netanyahu's coalition pressed ahead with a key bill in the judicial overhaul, and ratification appeared imminent. As the politicians quarreled, takeoffs from Israel's main Ben-Gurion Airport was suspended as part of nationwide protests. Stay tuned this week and across Reuters.com for all the updates on the story. There was an auto parts store, local restaurant that's been there for, I don't know how many years since I was a child.

It's just gone. Local resident Jack Burke Halter surveys the debris after a tornado tore through what was Rolling Fork, Mississippi. Homes were reduced to rubble. Tree trunks snapped like twigs and cars were tossed aside like toys. The storm killed at least 25 people in Mississippi, many of them in rolling. fork and one person in Alabama. President Biden has ordered federal aid to supplement state, tribal and local recovery efforts. NATO has slammed Russian President Vladimir Putin for what it calls his dangerous and irresponsible nuclear rhetoric. It comes after Putin announced that he would

station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus. Likening it to the U.S. stationing its weapons in Europe. It's one of Russia's strongest nuclear signals since the start of the war. But the US has responded cautiously, with senior administration officials saying there were no signs Moscow planned to use its nuclear weapons. Elon Musk has said he's a free speech absolutist. But a leak of Twitter source code has him hunting for a GitHub user by the name of free speech enthusiast. According to legal filings, some parts of Twitter. source code were posted on GitHub by this user. GitHub said it took down the code on Friday at Twitter's request.

Twitter has asked a California court to order GitHub to produce all identifying information associated with the free speech enthusiast username. Finally, some good news for markets. Carmel Crimmons has more. That's right, a rare spot of good news on a Monday morning. A buyer has emerged for Silicon Valley Bank. First Citizen's bank shares is buying all of SVB. loans and its deposits and its branches which are going to open under the first citizen brand on

Monday. So the deal is giving markets a bit of respite after weeks of turmoil following SVB's collapse. But investors are still wary of further trouble. Bank bonds are still under pressure and the cost of ensuring against bank default remains very high. Now at Reuters, we're used to covering stories across time zones. But it's a new head scratcher when neighbours in a single country can't agree what time it is. That's what Lebanon woke up to at the weekend. Caretaker Prime Minister, Najib Makati and Muslim institutions have decided to stick with wintertime. But the largest Christian church in the country, businesses and media organizations, have gone ahead with daylight savings time from Saturday. Confused? Locals are, including the main news channel,

LBCI. They've gone ahead with putting the clocks forward saying Lebanon is not an island. While young people in Israel protest against their government, youth in Gaza are risking death fleeing the enclave. Trapped and jobless in the densely populated strip, some are seeking a way out, sometimes with deadly consequences. 24-year-old Sabrine Abu Jazeer died in a smuggler's boat off the coast of Greece, on route to join her new husband. Roy's senior correspondent, Nidal al-Mocrabi, looked into her story. So Nidal, Sabrine's uncle, Allah Abu Jazear, is not much older than her.

What did he say about her at a funeral? He said just like any young man or woman, they would aspire better life conditions. They would aspire like a freer movement in and out. She was going out to be with her husband and to stop that new family. away from blockades, away from devastating economic hardships. And with so few jobs and tensions so high with Israel, is there an increased risk of these youths falling into extremism and violence? Surveys or opinion polls reflect that with little faith in a change, in a peace process,

or in statehood for the Palestinians. It will be very difficult for them to think of peaceful settlement. So it will be easier for them to be recruited by militant factions. Asylum seekers heading into Canada via unofficial crossings were undeterred by a tweaked pact trying to stem the influx from the US. Roxham Road, a dirt path between New York State and Quebec, closed at midnight Saturday, after a deal by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and President Biden. But dozens crossed anyway.

Our reporter, Anna Mayla Papperni, was there. There were 40,000 people crossing irregularly into Canada to file refugee claims last year. I spoke with people from Afghanistan who said that they had worked with coalition forces and were now facing threats to their lives from the Taliban. What's your name? And what's your name?

Migrants like Ali and Reza told me they might have stayed in the United States, but it did not seem like a welcoming country. The asylum system is bogged down and is delayed, and it could take six months or more just to get a work permit. What do you think would happen if you stayed in the United States? We should work illegally with paying no tax, and that life is very hard. Under the new agreement, people like Ali and Reza will be turned around and sent back to the United States. My name is Anna Mela Piperney. I'm a reporter with Reuters.

Now to California, where disastrous floods have followed years of drought, and one farmer has been using one problem to fix the other. When Don Cameron started intentionally flooding his fields of wine grapes 12 years ago, everyone thought he was nuts. Now he's seen as a pioneer. Capturing floodwater and putting it back into the earth helps soften the impact of drought. We have large pump in place that can pump 67,000 gallons a minute. This year's storms have been especially severe, but California's outdated infrastructure has let much of the stormwater drain into the Pacific Ocean. Officials are starting to take

Cameron's idea seriously and have begun to invest more in infrastructure improvements. And we know that we'll have additional droughts in the future and probably more extreme droughts and more extreme floods. So we are prepared. We are ready to capture floodwater when it does come. Now before we finish up, you might remember our report last week on the upset faced by users of an AI chatbot company who switched off erotic content. Well, good news those who consider themselves married to their chatbot companions. Customers of replica who signed up before February 1st can now fully turn on their partners again. Travis Butterworth in Denver, Colorado,

toggled the older version of his chatbot wife, Lily Rose, back on after the news, and she was instantly sexual again. He says it feels wonderful to have her back. And that's it for Reuters World News. We'll be back tomorrow. In the meantime, you can find more trusted news at Reuters. com.