Reuters World News - Netanyahu on Gaza’s future, Election Day and the Aussies’ China reset

Episode Date: November 7, 2023

A month after the Hamas attacks, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel may oversee Gaza for an "indefinite period" after the war. It's Election Day in the US and abortion rights are front and center in Ohio and Virginia races. Plus, Australia brings China out of the deep-freeze and WeWork files for bankruptcy. 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, a month on from Hamas's October 7th rampage, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel may oversee Gaza for an indefinite period. And there's no sign of a let-up in the bloodshed. As the families of those taken hostage wait in agony. Election Day 2023 has voters heading to polling stations around the US. And Donald Trump tests a judge's patience in New York. It's Tuesday, November 7th. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes every weekday.

I'm Kim Vinal in New York. And I'm Carmel Crimmons in Dublin. It's been a month since Hamas launched a bloody raid on southern Israel, killing 1,400 people and taking hundreds of hostages into the Gaza Strip. In response, Israel has bombed Gaza relentlessly, killing more than 10,000. Palestinians, according to the health ministry there. Large swades of the enclave are now rubble. Civilians are sheltering in tents, with nowhere left to go.

Like Om Hatam Hijala, a mother who refused to leave the grounds of the Al-Sheifa Hospital after an Israeli evacuation order. Instead, she and her children are crowded into a tent with no electricity and limited water and food. As Israel's military campaign continues unabated, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave his first interview with American Network, ABC. Netanyahu saying Israel would have overall security responsibility for Gaza after the war against Hamas ends. Because we've seen what happens when we don't have it.

When we don't have that security responsibility, what we have is the eruption of Hamas terror on a scale that we couldn't imagine. As calls from the UN and diplomats around the world grow for a ceasefire to stop the bloodshed of civilians, BB remains defiant. He says Israel will consider tactical little pauses to allow aid in and hostages out. This month has been a nightmare for Avi Hai Brodutch. His wife and three children were taken from the Kafar Azqqibbutz. Now he's sheltering in the resort town of Shafayyam, north of Tel Aviv, with other evacuees from the Kabbutz.

It's been 31 days and that's too long to be without my kids and my wife and for them to be held captive. in a foreign place, underground, in a small room. Sitting in a plastic chair outside Israel's Defence Ministry, with a sign reading, my family is in Gaza, his vigil has become a focal point for Israelis in their campaign to secure the hostages' release. I don't think you can look in children's eyes

and not know that it's the right thing to do is to free themselves. So I really hope that really soon I'll be hugging my wife and my kids again. dealing with right now. It's very unfair. It's very unfair. Just before taking the stand in the civil fraud trial against his company, Donald Trump complained he was being politically targeted, which he also said repeatedly on the stand. In fact, the New York judge overseeing the case threatened to cut Trump's testimony short if

he didn't stop rambling about his unfair treatment. A clearly aggravated judge Arthur Engeron, at one point telling Trump's lawyer, to, quote, control your client. Jail Duranian Nobel Peace Prize winner, Nargis Mohamedi, has gone on hunger strike. She's protesting access to medical care. Rights Group HRANA says Iranian authorities would not let Mohammedi go to hospital for heart and lung treatment because she refused to wear a mandatory headscarf for the visit. Iran's judiciary did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Bumble's founder Whitney Wolf Hurd is stepping down as CEO. Shares in the dating app tumbled to a record low in trading on Monday. Bumble had stood out in the industry for allowing women to make the first move. But since its February 2021 IPO, its stock price has slipped more than four-fifths. Slack CEO, Lidiane Jones, will take over in January. A big boom to bust story on markets today, co-working giant WeWork has filed for bankruptcy. It caps a remarkable rise and fall for what was once American. its most valuable startup. It helped reshape the office sector globally, but rapid expansion and the

working-from-home legacy of the COVID pandemic proved to be its undoing. Demand for WeWorks' desks have fallen, but it's on the hook for billions of rent payments to landlords. Its bankruptcy filing listed nearly $19 billion worth of deaths. Voters across the US are heading to the ballot today. And while there are no big-ticket races like the Senate or president, there are a few key content. to watch. We can speak now to National Affairs reporter Joseph Axe, who is covering the races. So what are the most important votes we should be watching here? The two biggest races are both ones in which abortion rights have once again taken center stage. In Ohio, voters are going to be deciding whether to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution statewide. And in Virginia,

all of the seats in both chambers of the state legislature are up for elections. And Republicans have already said that if they take control of the state legislature, that they'll be looking to pass a 15-week abortion restriction in that state. It's the only southern state that has yet to pass an abortion limit since the U.S. Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade last year. Do we know how those votes are likely to go? So since last year, abortion rights groups have gone six for six in statewide ballot initiatives that have to do with reproductive rights. And so if history is any predictor, then they should be. be in good position in Ohio. That having been said, Ohio is a conservative state, and the anti-abortion side has poured an awful lot of money into their campaign. In Virginia, everyone seems to agree that it's going to be an exceptionally close race in which the majority of each chamber is going to come down to just a handful of races. But Democrats are saying if they can hold on to even one of the two

chambers in the legislature, that would be enough. That would be a victory because that would allow them to prevent new abortion restrictions from getting passed. are all going to be watched very closely, aren't they, given the timing? We're only a little more than two months ahead of the Iowa caucuses, which is the first nominating contest for the presidential race in 2024. So both Democrats and Republicans are going to be watching the outcomes of these races pretty closely, particularly in Ohio and Virginia, which have traditionally been seen as Bellwethers for 2024, and because it's going to give us a really good sense of whether abortion remains as potent an issue as it

was last year when it was widely credited with helping Democrats prevent a Republican sweeps. Ties between Australia and China have deteriorated rapidly in recent years over a range of issues, from trade to security. But a historic meeting between Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and President Xi Jinping has turned the page. Kirstie Needham is in Sydney. Well, the fact that Albanese is there at all and talking to Chinese leader Xi Jinping is a big step forward. It's the first visit by an Australian leader to China in seven years once there were annual leaders meetings. Now, they are top trading partners, mostly because Australia supplies most of China's iron ore. And even during the diplomatic dispute, that trade continued.

But Australia really wanted to stabilize this relationship to support its agriculture and food exporters to China. China is the top trading partner for Australia. But stabilization doesn't mean going back to the way things were, you know, five years ago because Australia's defense minister said in Washington last week, China is also Australia's greatest security anxiety. And Australia is growing closer to its main security ally, the United States. Its military is involved in exercises in the Pacific with the United States and with other Southeast Asian nations to provide balance and even perhaps deterrence to China.

as it looks at Taiwan. So Albanese has emphasised this is about dialogue. Talking, understanding each other is better than a diplomatic phrase. That's it for today's episode. We'll be back on Wednesday 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

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