Reuters World News - New York court readies for Trump, Paris protests and Fox News on trial

Episode Date: March 21, 2023

New York City prepares for possible civil unrest if Donald Trump is arrested. Protests erupt in Paris after President Emmanuel Macron survives no-confidence vote. Fox News heads to court ahead of $1.6 billion defamation trial and London’s Metropolitan police is labelled as racist, misogynistic and homophobic in damning review. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

New York braces for a possible Trump arrest as Republicans come out swinging against the Manhattan DA. Protests in Paris after the French government narrowly survives a no-confidence motion in Parliament. And a damning report labels London's police force as racist, homophobic and sexist. So whichever way you look at it, whichever label or description, the evidence is absolutely clear that as an institution, are they prejudiced and discriminatory? Yes, they are. It's Tuesday, March 21st. This is Reuters World News,

bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes. I'm Kim Vinal in London. Workers erect barricades around a Manhattan courthouse as New York City steals itself for the possible first criminal case against a president in US history.

Officials are on high alert for violence if Donald Trump is arrested. He's told his social media followers he will be and has asked them to protest on his behalf. Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg asked a grand jury to probe allegations that Trump gave hush money to pawn start Stormy Daniels during his 2016 campaign. Several Republicans have come out swinging against Bragg, accusing him of a politically motivated attack

and questioning if the DA's office should spend more time tackling crime. In other headlines around the world. humanity is on thin ice and that ice is melting fast. A dire warning from UN Secretary General Antonio Gutierrez. A report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is urging countries to cut emissions even more aggressively than the previous 2050 goals. Nearly half of the world's population is already vulnerable to climate disaster,

the report says. Volatile weather across the globe highlights the dangers to communities, like in the East African country of Malawi, where Tropical Storm Freddie has dumped so much rain that workers have to bail water out of soaked graves so they can bury those killed in landslides caused by the typhoon. Protesters boo in Paris after hearing President Emmanuel Macon's government has survived a no-confidence vote. Voters are furious about him pushing through a raise in retirement age from 62 to 64. Lely Feraldi was out on the streets for us

as angry demonstrators lit fires and played cat and mouse with police. I'm at a protest place of Bourbonne in Paris, which is about a kilometre from the National Assembly where parliamentarians have just rejected two no-confidence motions against Macron's government. Even if Macron has survived this vote, his failure to find enough support in Parliament

to put his pension system overhaul to a vote is seen to have undermined his reformist agenda and weakened his leadership. The government is expecting protests, which have been gaining in intensity over the last few days, and there is a heavy police presence here. This square is surrounded by police cars. The police charged at protesters earlier and sprayed tear gas to disperse the crowd. So there you can hear.

You can hear protesters singing, we are here, we are here. Even if Macron doesn't want it, we're here. I'm Lely Frudi in Paris. In West Africa, a kid. kidnapped American aid worker and a French journalist have been released in Niger. Jeff Woodke thanked the governments of France, the U.S. and Niger, after being held by militants for more than six years in several West African countries. The aid workers' release comes just days after U.S. Secretary of State to Anthony Blinken visited Niger.

The U.S. State Department says no ransom was paid for Woodke's release. To the Indian Ocean now and a financial lifeline for Sri Lanka. The island nation will get the first payments from a $3 billion IMF bailout in the next two days. It can't come soon enough. Sri Lanka is experiencing its worst economic crisis in 70 years, with record inflation and shortages of medicine, food and fuel. The deal with the International Monetary Fund was agreed on Monday after a year of negotiations. President Ranel Vikram Singer now has to rein in the country's debt

and undertake painful fiscal reforms. Closer to home, investors are still on edge about the health of the banking system. Shares in First Republic Bank halved on Monday on concerns that a $30 billion infusion of capital would not be enough. But it's not all fear and loathing. Our very own Carmel Crimmons is here to explain. Troubles in the financial sector have definitely boosted demand for safe haven assets, like gold and treasuries,

but there's also been high demand for riskier assets like tech stocks and even Bitcoin. The cryptocurrency is up around 20% so far this month. Where is this demand coming from? Well, investors are betting that the troubles in the banking sector are going to force the Fed and other central banks to slow the pace of interest rate increases. Traders and economists are actually split

on whether the Fed is going to increase rates this week. So all eyes will be on them. Let's see what happens on Wednesday. To London and a scathing report, into Britain's biggest police force. An independent review says the London Metropolitan Police is institutionally racist, misogynistic and homophobic. The force was plunged into crisis

after the murder of a young woman by a serving officer in 2021. Baroness Louise Casey led the review and is called for radical reform. I suppose the thing for me that as a woman and a public servant is that at the moment that Sarah Everard was raped, abducted, raped and then murdered by a serving police officer, I find it extraordinary that in policing and in the Met Police, that wasn't their moment of like a plane falling out of the sky. I just think it is so dreadful. Her year-long review highlights other key failings.

The forces commissioner, Mark Rowley's promised change. It's ghastly, isn't it? You sit down and read that report and it generates a whole series of emotions. It generates sort of anger, frustration, embarrassment. We've let Londoners down and we've let our own front line down. And this report paints that vividly. And as I've said several times, I'm deeply sorry for that. A $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News heads to a Delaware court today.

Election Technology Company, Dominion Voting Systems, alleges the TV network amplified false claims that its voting machines were used to rig the 2020 presidential election. Lawyers for both sides will present oral arguments ahead of a trial scheduled for next month. Court documents have revealed how top executives and hosts at the network cast doubt on the plausibility of Trump's claims of election fraud. Media reporter Helen Costa and Lawyer,

legal correspondent Jack Queen in New York talked us through the case. So Helen, why hasn't Fox settled this case? So first of all, we're not aware of any settlement talks between the parties at this point. And illegal experts that we've spoken to universally believe that Dominion has a really strong case. To that end, I think it's safe to assume that if Fox does decide to go to trial, it will do so because it's hoping that the ultimate liability be much lower than the $1.6 billion that Dominion is claiming it deserves. Jack, why does Fox think the case isn't worth $1.6 billion? Fox has argued that Dominion's damages claim is not in proportion to its actual value as a business,

because that's the basis for its damages claim. And Fox points to the fact that Dominion was purchased in 2018 by a private equity firm for about $80 million. And the network argues that to claim that it is worth almost 10 times, more over the course of four years is not realistic. So what's Fox's defense here? One of their defenses is that they are reporting claims that were made that were newsworthy and that by punishing them for making these claims, a judge or jury will have a chilling effect on free speech. But legal experts we've spoken to really are able to poke holes in what's

called this neutral reporting privilege. And so they don't think that they're going to get very far with that claim or with that defense. How much of this case is about free speech? Well, Fox claims that Dominion is using an overly broad interpretation of free speech that would have a chilling effect on the press because it would hold them to an unfair standard where if they err on proven allegations that later turn out to be false, they could be punished for that. Now, Dominion argues that Fox is the one that is proposing a sweeping interpretation of defamation law. And they argue that Fox's argument is undercut by their evidence that they say proves that Fox knew the allegations were false and still aired them. So that's

going to be a key question. All right. Thanks very much. That's it for this edition of Reuters World News. And a happy first day of spring. We'll be back on Wednesday. In the meantime, you can find more trusted news at Reuters.com.