Reuters World News - Israel's front with Lebanon, speaker's shutdown bill and Europe's teen migrants

Episode Date: November 14, 2023

Lebanon front with Israel heats up, stoking fears of a wider war. The US House speaker tries to avoid a shutdown with a two step bill. Migrant children are being treated like adults as record numbers arrive in the Canary Islands by boat. Plus, Iceland’s volcano sparks mass evacuation and the Italian town that fell in love with a lion roaming free. 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, escalating fire along the Lebanon-Israel border stokes fears of a wider war. The new U.S. House Speaker faces his first test, getting enough votes from fellow Republicans to keep the lights on. In the Canary Islands, children arriving on wooden boats are being classified as adults, losing access to services and an education. And the escaped circus line enjoying strolls and naps in an Italian town. It's Tuesday, November 14th. 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. And I'm Jonah Green in New York.

Israel and Hezbollah have been trading fire since Hezbollah's ally Hamas went to war with Israel on October 7th. The escalating exchanges fueling concerns of a widening conflict with the Iran-backed group. Ed Blair is an editor on this story. Ed, what's the risk of the fighting spreading? so far, it's generally stayed with a relatively narrow band along the border region. And that seems to suit both parties at the moment. Both sides seem disinterested in escalating this into a full-blown war, such as the one we saw between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006. How much of a headache is this for Israel? We've seen both sides of the Lebanon and Israel border. We've seen evacuations of

people. In Israel, we have seen tens of thousands of people moving out of villages along, and villages and towns along that border region. This is a headache for Israel because it needs to provide some kind of security that will allow them to go back in the future. But for Israel's point of view, as long as the threat of Hisbalah remains, that question mark of whether the border will flare up remains an open question. So there may well be voices in Israel, which do think it's time to deal with Hezbollah. But there is also other voices that are saying, no, there's a desire to avoid opening two fronts. And there is also the pressure from the United States, which does not want to, A, see an escalation across the region and B, find itself drawn into some kind of conflict.

As Israel engages with Hezbollah on the Lebedee's border, President Biden has called for less intrusive action on the largest hospital in Gaza. The hospital must be protected. U.S. Speaker Mike Johnson faces his first legislative battle to avoid a government shutdown. He's trying to marshal his fractious Republican majority to support an unconventional stopgap bill before Friday's midnight deadline. U.S. politics editor Scott Malone is in Washington, D.C. with the latest. So, Scott, what's in the bill and what's the likelihood it passes?

What Mike Johnson has come up with is a two-step stopgap spending bill that would extend some government funding, the least contentious stuff. His first test will be to see if he can get this plan through the House of Representatives. His party holds a very narrow majority. As of Tuesday, will be 221 to 13, meaning that he can afford to lose only four Republican votes if he wants to pass a measure with only Republican support. As you know, his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, was ousted for relying heavily on Democratic support. We've had multiple House Republicans tell us that they do think that Johnson should be entitled to more of a grace period and some time.

So what does this measure achieve? So really what it does is it buys time. It keeps the government open at current funding levels through mostly until February 2nd with some pieces expiring on January. 19th, and the reason for that is to give lawmakers more time to agree on full-year spending bills. What they don't do is address the additional asks of the White House for money for Israel and for the Ukraine. What Biden has asked for is what's known as a supplemental. Biden wants to wrap together funding for Ukraine and for Israel and for Taiwan and for the border into one large supplemental bill. And what we know is that there's a split within the Republicans

as to whether they want to spend more money on Ukraine, which is slowing down and dimming the prospects of that bill advancing. If it can't pass anything by Sunday, what happens? The lights start flickering. So if Congress doesn't extend funding, then beginning at 1201 Saturday morning, the federal government enters a partial shutdown. What does that mean? That means that federal workers don't get paid, although they do have that pay restored,

typically at the end of a shutdown. the national parks will usually close, and other government functions will cease to operate critical things, law enforcement, air traffic control, that sort of thing. That continues. With that shutdown deadline on the horizon for Friday, markets are turning their attention to more immediate matters like U.S. inflation data out today and the outlook for retailers.

Wall Street is hoping higher wages and more moderate increases in food prices will get consumers spending this holiday season. And they'll get a preview of what's in store when Walmart and Target report results later this week. The U.S. Supreme Court has released its first code of conduct. The new ethics policy comes in the wake of criticism over undisclosed trips and gifts to some of the justices. Iceland is bracing itself for the significant risk of a volcanic eruption.

Thousands of people have been evacuated as authorities fear molten rock could soon rise to the surface of the earth. Ben McCory is in Reykjavik. You can smell sulfur in the air. I felt a couple of terms of. last night. People in Iceland, they are used to earthquakes. They live on geological fault line. But they're very concerned about what's going to happen because it could be nothing. It could be something catastrophic. And we're all playing the game of chickens with a volcano.

President Joe Biden's campaign has accused his 2024 rival of echoing Hitler. Biden's campaign spokesman issuing a statement saying Donald Trump had embraced the language of Nazi dictator. On Saturday, Trump told a rally that he would quote, root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin. Heavy machinery has been brought in to try and pull almost 40 Indian workers trapped inside a collapsed Himalayan highway tunnel. Officials say they'd be supplying food, water, and oxygen to those trapped on the popular Hindu pilgrimage route. I'm from the Gambia. I just came here to help my family. Yeah.

It was a very difficult journey. 16-year-old Modulamajajju survived an arduish journey on a boat from Gambia to Spain's Canary Islands. Because they told us we have seven days, and we spend 11 days in the sea. Four days without not drinking. We used to drink the salt water. He's among the record 32,000 migrants who have arrived on fragile boats from West Africa to the Spanish archipelago so far this year. Among them are 4,700 unaccompanied minors, like Moodoo, who are contending with another problem, proving they're not adults.

Our reporter, Corina Pons, recently visited migrant centers. The biggest center for Odols in the Tenerife, Iceland, that is located in the middle of a mountain near the capital city, was very crowd, plenty of young people. and most of them were saying that they are minors. We interview a few of them, can check the papers they show to us, but they were transferred to that center for odors because the police registered them with the same birth of date that transformed them in adults. Musa Kamara, he's a teenager, that arrive,

in a boat with 240 people. He told us that he was feeling very bad because he has to prove to the authorities that he's minor. That he told us a week ago, and now we don't know where he is because he was transferred from Tenerife, Iceland,

to the Iverian Peninsula. You also visited a center for unaccompanied minors. How did that compare to where Musa was staying? So in El Yerro, they receive proper education. They have Spanish lessons. And they play basketball, can receive a better treatment. When you are in a center for adults, you are alone. So if you are a teenager, I think it's quite an advantage to be in that kind of center for minors

to learn the local language and to survive in the future. In the Italian seaside town of L'Dispoli, video shows a large animal walking down the street at night. A lion. The adult lion, named Kimba, escaped from the Ronnie Roller Circus on Saturday afternoon. His seven-hour stroll sparked panic before authorities managed to sedate and capture him.

But not before Kimba captured locals' hearts. That's it for today's episode. we'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show. To make sure you know what's going on in the world, listen in for 10 minutes every weekday. And don't forget to subscribe on your favourite podcast player or download the Reuters app.