Reuters World News - McCarthy under threat, lithium battles in Europe and Hollywood's strike loopholes

Episode Date: September 13, 2023

U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy faces a threat from the Republican far right, despite Biden investigation. In Portugal, a small farming community hits back over a lithium project meant to fuel Europe’s green transition. What’s with the striking celebrities on the red carpet? Plus, the death toll in Libya rises as a desperate search for survivors continues. And the CEO of BP is out. 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, Kevin McCarthy's role as the top Republican in Congress in jeopardy, despite giving the far right the Biden impeachment inquiry they wanted. The death toll in Libya climbs to unimaginable heights after a Katrina-like storm surge wipes out a quarter of a city. BP's top boss is out after failing to disclose personal relationships with colleagues. Residents of a mountainous village in Portugal fight a lithium mine meant to fuel Europe's green transition. And striking celebrities are seen out on the red carpet.

What's going on? It's Wednesday, September 13th. This is Reuters World News, with everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes, every weekday. I'm Kim Vinal in London. And I'm Carmel Crimmons in Dublin. First, the headlines making news around the world.

At least 10,000 people remain missing in Libya after a powerful storm burst dams and wiped out as much as a quarter of the coastal city of Dona. Many a fared swept out to sea. Local resident Mustafa Salim said 30 members of his family were killed. That's why today I am directing our House committee to open a formal impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy conceding their... to weeks of pressure from hardliners and allies of former President Donald Trump. But despite giving them what they want,

McCarthy's own role as the top Republican in Congress is now on the line. After the announcement, Hardline Representative Matt Gates again raised the possibility of ousting McCarthy. Sticking with US politics, but from Vladivostok, President Vladimir Putin telling delegates at an economic conference that the prosecution of Donald Trump was politically motivated and demonstrated the rottenness of the US political system. He was speaking before meeting North Korea's Kim Jong-un

at a rocket launch site in Siberia. A decongestant used in many over-the-counter coal medicines like Benadryl and Tylenol is ineffective, according to an advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration. The panel's vote on the issue could lead to the ingredient fennelfrin being barred from sale in the United States, meaning products using it would be pulled from stores. Superstar Taylor Swift has added nine trophies to her collection,

as she claimed the top prize for her song, Anti-Hero, at MTV's Video Music Awards. Her accolades included song, artist and album of the year, bringing her lifetime VMA total to 23, second only to the Queen, Beyonce. It's time for markets now with Carmel Crimmons and Carmel a shock departure in the energy world. That's right. Bernard Looney has resigned as Chief Executive of

BP. He's leaving because he failed to fully disclose details of past relationships with colleagues. This is a huge surprise. He'd been in the job less than four years, but he'd really put his mark on the company. So tell me about him. Who is Bernard Looney? So he's an interesting guy. He's Irish. He grew up on a small dairy farm in Kerry and he was the first of his family to go to university. BP was his first and only job after college, so he's a company lifer, or he was a company lifer. But Looney embarked on a major corporate shakeup when he took over. So he crucially vowed to reinvent BP to be at the vanguard of the energy transition. So he set these targets for cutting back on exploration of oil and gas,

and he wanted the company to focus more on lower carbon projects like wind, biogas, as well as charging networks for EVs. How did that work out? So investors were not convinced. US oil and gas majors saw surging profits due to the jumping oil and gas prices, and BP struggle to match. So who will replace him? And what does that mean for BP's strategy?

So CFO Murray-Aucloss is going to be the acting CEO on an interim basis. It's not clear who's going to replace Looney permanently. But in theory, a new CEO could roll back the transition plans further. The parish of Covas do Barroso in northern Portugal has just a few hundred people living in it. But that tiny population could have some sway over Europe's green energy transition. Katerina Demosone traveled to the village to, speak to residents determined to keep a lithium mine out of their backyard. Katerina, can you start by describing this area for us?

Barozo is a region of lush green mountains in northern Portugal. There are rivers and natural water fountains and pastures. People live off agriculture there and have a simple life. The village itself covers is very tiny. Houses are still made of rustic stone and it only has a few hundred residents. Mostly people have lived there all their lives. So what are their concerns about this proposed lithium mine? So the population's main concern has to do with the impact of the proposed mine

might have on the environment. The area of Boroso is a world heritage site for agriculture, a mountainous area full of trees, rivers, natural water fountains, where most people live off what they grow from potatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes, lettuces. and many work in agriculture too and own animals, mostly cows. Nelson is a farmer. He has cows and spends most of his day at pastures. He's one of the leaders of the anti-lethean movement.

He spoke to us near his house in Berroso. And what he said is that he felt that the people, people like him at this village, were paying the price of the so-called green transition. He felt that the government was trying to clean up the cities, trying to make cities more sustainable. But to do so, they had to pollute villages like his. Portugal's Environment Agency gave mining companies Savannah Resources the green light in May. So what happens next? Can the residents stop the mine?

They will use the region's world agriculture heritage site status as a weapon to protect the region. But their main weapon is their land. Most of the land where the company wants to build the open pit mine is known as common land, Baldiuch in Portuguese. That means that the community has a legal right to decide what the land is used for, for hunting or farming or other purposes. And the association responsible for this land has refused the company's offers to rent the land. The rest of the land they need, that the company needs, is privately owned. and our understanding is that the vast majority of landowners have refused to sell. According to this anti-litium association and the city council, the company has less than 10% of the land he needs.

But the company's big weapon is the government itself. If the government supports the project, it can give the company the rights to expropriate the land in the national interest. So one thing is for certain. There's a long journey ahead for both the company, but also for the community. The chief executive of Savannah told Reuters that the land issue is something that they would resolve through dialogue and that a 30-year mining lease

safeguards its access to the land if it's not possible to reach an agreement. As the Hollywood strikes rumble on, you might be seeing actors and directors out and about promoting movies. This was the Venice Film Festival last week, where the likes of Wes Anderson Adam Driver and Jessica Chastain were present.

Are they violating union rules? We asked our entertainment reporter Lisa Richwine, who's in Hollywood. Lisa, are there loopholes for certain appearances? You're seeing celebrities at film festivals right now because many of them are promoting independent films that are not subject to the agreements that are the reason for the strike right now. So Adam Driver, for instance, was at the Venice Film Festival. he did a movie called Ferrari for a small distributor named Neon,

which is not one of the big studios that is part of the agreement that is at issue in Hollywood right now. Sag Afterra is actually encouraging actors who worked on independent films to go out and promote them because they want the business to thrive. They don't want to hurt these other movies that are not the subject to the disagreement. Part of what you might see is a movie

where an actor is also the director. So if you're a director, you can go out and promote a movie. I mean, Greta Gourwig went out and promoted Barbie once the strike started because the cast couldn't go out. There's also a writer's strike, which is why all the late night shows are off the air. But Drew Barrymore has decided to come back, which seems to be stirring up a bit of controversy. Yeah, Drew Barrymore has really angered people in Hollywood, especially the writers. She announced that she was going to bring her talk show back. She says she's not violating any stragg rules,

but the Writers Guild of America insists that she is. Talk shows do have writers, so who's going to write Drew's monologue? Is she going to use non-WGA writers? Is she going to write it herself? There were protests at her studio on Monday. That was the first day she filmed a new episode to air next week. And she's gotten a lot of really vitriol from writers on Twitter. There's a lot of anger.

That's it for today's episode of Reuters World News. We'll be back with our daily headline show on Thursday. To make sure you know what's going on in your world, listen in for 10 minutes every weekday. And don't forget to subscribe on your favourite podcast player or download the Reuters app.