Reuters World News - Israel doubt on Biden's Saudi deal, Africa tough on Niger and Lebanon's top banker bids adieu

Episode Date: July 31, 2023

West African countries have imposed sanctions and threatened force against Niger’s military junta. US President Biden has made normalizing ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia a policy priority - but a top Israeli lawmaker says it’s not imminent. Lebanon's veteran central bank chief leaves his post with his legacy in shreds and the country’s financial system in collapse. 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, Niger's junta says France is planning strikes to free the ousted president, as Africa gets tough in hopes of reversing the coup. Israel soes doubt on a breakthrough for Biden in his much-sought-after deal with Saudi Arabia. And Lebanon's central bank governor departs after 30 years, and a collapse that has sunk the currency's value by 98%. This is Reuters' world news. with everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes. Every weekday.

I'm Kim Vennel in London. First, the headlines from around the world. Wagner's boss says he is not currently recruiting mercenary fighters, but is likely to do so in the future. Mercenary chief Yevgeny Progogion posted a voice message on telegram as questions continue to swirl over the future of the military outfit. That's the moment a drone has. hits a building in Moscow on Sunday, one of three attacks Russia blamed on Ukraine.

Nobody was hurt, but a video shot by a witness shows flames shooting up out of a Moscow street. After capturing the moment, the videographer is heard saying, I told you, dear mommy, I captured it. Let's get out of here right now. Elon Musk is drawing heat in San Francisco over the giant X logo glowing over the roof of the headquarters of the company previously known as Twitter. City officials and some residents have complained about the intrusive lights. Mask, who moved the headquarters of Tesla to Texas, has committed to keep X in San Francisco,

even as the city has struggled to bounce back from tourism and business losses. To Markets Now with Lewis Jackson, who is a correspondent in Sydney, Lewis, you have some reporting on the state of the commercial real estate market post-COVID. What have you found? So not only do you have the industry sort of struggling, I guess, in the downturn of the business cycle, you've now got offices that are empty, people not coming in as often electing to shop online. You're looking pretty worried right now. You're worried that when your tenants come up to negotiate, you know, in the next 6, 12, 18, 24 months, they're going to want less space. And these empty office buildings aren't going to be worth as much

as they perhaps bought them for. Who stands to lose out here? This is bad news for anyone who owns an office block and anyone who's lent money to someone who owns an office block. Now, we're particularly concerned about banks because problems in banking can spill over to the rest of the economy. And in America in particular, there's lots and lots of very small banks, thousands of them.

And those have lent quite heavily and are quite exposed to commercial real estate. But there's lots of large investors the world over who've invested quite heavily in commercial real estate and now looking at. Paul returns. Liger's toppled government have authorized France to carry out strikes at the presidency to try to free democratically elected president, Mohamed Bazoum. That's according to the military junta, who have confined Bazum to the presidential palace since Wednesday.

They've previously warned against foreign attempts to extract him, saying it would result in bloodshed and chaos. West African nations have imposed sanctions. and threatened to send in forces if Niger's new military leaders don't reinstate the ousted president within a week. Bate Felix is bureau chief for West and Central Africa. Bate, there's been a lot of coups in this region. Is there anything different in these threats by African leaders? Yeah, this time we can see that they are really determined to make sure that this coup in Niger does not hold.

and they're trying everything they have in their toolbox to reverse it. And we've never seen such a swift reaction from the leaders. It has been barely days. Why are they doing this? I mean, we've seen a series of calls in the region, Mali, Bokinafaso, and in Guinea. Mali and Bokinafaso in particular just made the security situation in the whole region even worse. And Niger had become pivotal. It was a key ally to Western powers in the fight against Islamic militants in the region.

Will these moves from African leaders have an impact? They will need to pay salaries very soon. They could pay some salaries, but starting next month, we could see the junta struggle. If they last up to a month, we could see them struggle financially because Nigeria is a country that depends quite a lot on foreign aid. Most of the foreign aid has now been frozen. What is the status of French and American troops in Niger? So right now, the Americans have about, I think, 1,200 troops in Niger, almost similar

number with the French in various bases and places across the country. They are mostly now, I think, confined to their bases, but it's not clear if they will stay in the country, if the coup takes whole. They have all threatened to end on military cooperation with Niger if the coup is not reversed. So we'll see they could decide to leave if the junta stays in place. Normalising ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia is a priority for President Biden. For months, the White House has pushed for what would be an historic agreement between the long-time adversaries, but the Saudis have resisted.

Now, Biden says there may be a breakthrough after national security adviser Jake Sullivan sat down with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Jeddah. Dan Williams is following the diplomatic back and forth from Israel. Dan, top Israeli lawmaker Yulai Edelstein denied that a Saudi Arabia deal was imminent. What's going on? Effectively, the way he cast it is that Saudi Arabia and the United States are having most of the conversation between themselves right now because Saudi Arabia has a number of demands of the United States before it considers making an accommodation with Israel.

So how close does it look like Israel and Saudi are to normalizing relations? I think some caution is called for the fact that this visit by Biden's national security advisor to Saudi Arabia came largely out of left field. It was rather surprising, given the less than ideal state of relations between the U.S. and Israel, suggests that the United States is seriously trying to achieve a breakthrough. It's very possible that Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, has an interest in normalizing ties with Saudi Arabia, or at least being seen to make progress in that direction, given his domestic crisis over his judicial reforms. There is a third party, and that's Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has been reticent about these moves. It doesn't

seem in any rush, certainly not to discuss about such moves prematurely or to confirm that they're under way. Obviously, it's the party being courted, and I think we'll really have to see how much give there is on the Saudi end before we can judge the credibility or the progress of this latest push. Scenes of ordinary citizens resorting to holding up banks to get their own money in Lebanon have come to define its devastating economic collapse. Today, Lebanese Central Bank governor Riyadh Salame leaves the post he's had for 30 years. His legacy has been stained by the devastating collapse of Lebanon's banking sector and several European investigations into claims of embezzlement, which he denies.

Our Lebanon Bureau Chief, Mayor Jabali, is on the ground in Beirut. So what happens with the central bank now? Is there an obvious successor? According to Lebanese law, there is. According to Lebanon's Code of Money and Credit, the person that would take over from the Central Bank governor, should the central bank governor no longer be around, would be the first vice governor who right now is a man called Wessim Mansouri.

But there has been a lot of back-in-force building up in recent weeks over whether Mansouri and his political backers actually want the job. What does all of this mean for the state of Lebanon in the immediate and in the longer term? It means that yet another top post in the country will be left empty. The Lebanese presidency has been empty since the end of October and other top posts in the country aren't fully staffed. That gets increasingly dangerous as Lebanon's economy sinks even further and further. Families are impoverished every year when this time of year comes around

and parents start thinking about having to put their kids back into school. They're going through a crisis so whether they can actually afford to not only pay for school tuitions but pay for what their kids will need. So we're going through these cycles every year on year where families are further and further impoverished. Convierce your passion in a business with Shopify and bathe records of

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