Reuters World News - Navalny’s widow, Assange and Spanish brown bears

Episode Date: February 20, 2024

Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, has vowed to take up the fight against President Vladimir Putin. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is facing a final UK battle to avoid extradition to the U.S. Elon Musk says the first human patient implanted with a Neuralink brain chip can control a computer mouse just by thinking. And Iberian brown bears are venturing into town. 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, Alexei Navalny's widow vows to carry on her husband's fight against Vladimir Putin. Julian Assange faces his final UK court battle, and how special patrols are protecting Spain's brown bears and wary locals. It's Tuesday, February 20th. 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. Julia Navalnya saying she would continue the fight of her dead husband, Alexei Navalny,

for a free Russia. In a nine-minute video message, laced with rage, Navalnaia said President Vladimir Putin had killed the opposition leader. The Kremlin has denied involvement in his death. Andrew Osborne is in London. Andrew, what do we know of Yulia Navalnaia? She's someone really who has supported her husband and has chosen to adopt traditionally a kind of a,

a supporting role. I think this is what she said herself. But at the same time, she's well known. She's been known for many years as the First Lady of Russia's opposition. She's been at his side, at protests. She herself has been detained many times by the police, by the authorities. What has changed since his death? What we saw is that three days after her husband's death, she suddenly released this video on YouTube on her husband's YouTube channel and she didn't say, I'm going to become the next leader of the Russian opposition. But that is exactly what many people think is going on here. It was viewed in the first couple of hours, I think over one and a half million times on YouTube, many times on X. It generated tens of thousands of

comments. She then herself set up a new social media account on X. Again, that quickly gathered a big following. And I think there was a sense among Navalny's supporters, a sense of relief and I think what she's trying to do and it appears she has succeeded, albeit extremely early days, is give those same supporters a sense of hope and a sense of purpose. What challenges does she face trying to continue her husband's legacy? The main challenge she faces is that if, as now, she remains outside Russia, it's very easy for the Russian authorities to cast her as somebody who is a Western puppet. And it's much more difficult for her to have an influence on people inside Russia.

and to be taken seriously. But on the other hand, if she does follow in her husband's footsteps and go back to Russia, well, then she's likely to follow his fate in the sense that she's likely to be detained, arrested, or who knows, perhaps they wouldn't even let her into the country. I mean, certainly one thing that we're already hearing is that it's fairly likely after her statement that she will be designated what is called a foreign agent in Russia or even as an extremist. That clearly makes going back to Russia very perilous for her and means that she would face immediate arrest if that were to happen.

The United States has proposed a temporary ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war in a United Nations Security Council draft resolution. The move comes after the US had signalled it would veto an Algerian proposal calling for an immediate ceasefire. Until now, the US has resisted calls for a ceasefire. Its draft proposal also opposes a major ground offensive by Israel in Rafah. Elon Musk has said the first human patient implanted with a Neurilink brain chip can control a computer mouse just by thinking. Musk said Neurrelink was trying to get as many mouse clicks as possible from the patient.

Ukraine's military has said its troops have taken up new defensive positions in the east after retreating from the captured town of Avdeka. Russia took full control of Avdika over the weekend, handing the Kremlin its biggest battlefield advance since capturing the city of Bachmoud in May. A judge in Haiti has charged Martin Moyes, the widow of President Jovenel Moyes, with conspiring in his assassination. Martine Moyes was seriously injured in the 2021 attack. Juan Orlando Hernandez, the former president of Honduras, goes on trial on U.S. drug trafficking charges today. A New York jury will determine whether Washington's one-time key anti-drug ally actually ran the Central American country as a narco state.

Hernandez has pleaded not guilty to three counts of cocaine importation, conspiracy and illegal weapons possession. China has announced its biggest ever cut in the benchmark mortgage rate. The move is designed to give the struggling property market a shot in the arm. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is launching a last-ditch legal challenge to stop his extradition from Britain to the United States. Assange is wanted by US authorities over Wikileaks release of confidential military records and diplomatic cables. Britain approved his extradition in 2022, a decision which he's fighting to overturn at London's High Court over the next two days. Michael Holden is in London. Do we have any indication as to whether Assange will succeed?

It's quite hard to say with this because he hasn't been very successful in his appeal so far. Initially, he did actually manage to block extradition on the grounds that because of his mental health, that he was a risk of suicide if he was extradited to the United States. The US were able to win an appeal against that by providing certain conditions and saying that he wouldn't be treated in a way that would put his mental health at risk. But generally, he's not been hugely successful in the courts. So it's hard to know how it will go, but it could be quite a tough battle for him. What happens if he's extradited to the US? So according to his supporters, they say he could face a jail term if convicted of up to 175 years.

The US prosecutors don't actually agree with that. They say, he would face no more than 63 months if he was found guilty of the 18 charges in which he's been accused. So could we see Assange put on a plane to the US this week? That's highly unlikely. The judges, two judges who are going to be hearing the case this week are likely to take, I would imagine, a short amount of time to decide whether to find in his favour or reject his appeal.

Even if they do throw out his case, then he can apply to the European Court of Human Rights who could issue an injunction preventing his extradition. In the mountains of northern Spain, two bears play together on the rocks. Harmless fun for the once nearly extinct Iberian brown bears. As their population recovers,

their search for food is taking them more and more into urban areas and dangerous confrontations with locals. 73-year-old Angeloz Fernandez is struggling to keep the bears out of her vegetable garden and says it's sad she doesn't feel safe to go out for a walk.

Elena Rodriguez has been to Biobino region to find out how conservationists are trying to solve this problem with the help of special bear patrols. Villabino is a town in the mountains of northern Spain. This town where around 8,000 people live, has dozens of tiny villages where the coexistence between the wild animals and the locals is getting harder.

But residents are learning to coexist with the bearers with the help of these spaces patrol that finally strive to keep the animals healthy and local safe. The main solution is this patrol, this special patrol, because they are always ready to act when they receive an alert from the villages

or from even their trap alerts. So as soon as they get the call, they move fast and try to scare the bears away from the urban areas. And so far, they have trapped 12 bears in their special traps, and they have released them far from the villages, so now they can control,

and remotely to check if they are approaching again the villages. The future looks brighter for the coexistence between locals and bears in the area because tracking the animals helps the patrol prevent them from eating crops, such as fruit trees and vegetables and also allows locals to go about their daily lives without having to constantly worry about bumping into a bear. That's it for today's episode of Reuters World News. 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.