Reuters World News - Pelicot verdict, government shutdown, the Fed and Iran’s oil

Episode Date: December 19, 2024

Dominique Pelicot has been found guilty of all charges and sentenced to 20 years. The mass rape trial in France has transformed the victim, Gisele Pelicot, into a stirring symbol of courage and resilience. Donald Trump has disrupted bipartisan efforts to dodge a government shutdown, pressuring Republicans to reject a stopgap bill. The Fed’s rate cut lands as expected, but policymakers are starting to price in expectations of economic changes under the incoming administration. And Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have tightened their grip on the country’s oil. Sign up for the Reuters Econ World newsletter here. Listen to the Reuters Econ World podcast here. Find the Recommended Read here. 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, guilty verdicts in the mass rape trial that's rocked France. The Federal Reserve has made its final rate cut of the year. What's ahead for U.S. fiscal policy remains uncertain. Donald Trump threatens to upend a stopgap spending bill just days before the money is set to run out, and Iran's revolutionary guards tighten their grip on the country's oil industry. It's Thursday, December 19th. This is Reuters' World News. bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes every weekday.

I'm Christopher Waljester in Chicago. And I'm Tara Oaks in Liverpool. Dominique Pelico has been found guilty of repeatedly drugging and raping his wife for almost a decade and inviting dozens of strangers to rape her while she was unconscious in their home. He's been sentenced to 20 years in prison. The trial has shocked France and reverberated around the world. Juliette-Jopcaro is in Avignon. Giselle Pellico's courage has really resonated with French women

and also has really shocked all of France and even beyond. And so her case has raised awareness around sexual violence within a couple and also around drug-facilitated assaults. And so many women have been able to identify with her because contrary to previous prominent sexual violence cases in France, She's a normal person, so people in her can see themselves or their mother or their grandmother. And so it has really prompted a lot of soul searching. France has like this hotline for women who are victims of violence.

And in the past few weeks and months, they've seen like a wave of callers talking about drug-facilitated assault, thinking that maybe they have been victims. And you've also written that this has prompted medical professionals to go through a kind of soul searching to re-examine how they respond to potential victims, right? How has that manifested itself? To think that this woman went to see doctors for years and years and no one thought that maybe she was a victim of drug facilitated assault. And so it has really sort of awoken all medical professionals. and so now many of them are seeking training. President-elect Donald Trump is attacking a bipartisan measure aimed at averting a government shutdown.

Trump, along with Elon Musk, claims the Stop Gap spending bill is a giveaway to Democrats. Instead, he's asking Congress to rewrite the spending bill just days before funding expires and is asking to raise the nation's debt ceiling. And he has a warning for those that break ranks. Politics editor Scott Malone is in Washington. Congress came into the day thinking, okay, we need to pass funding to keep the government running past Saturday

when partial shutdown would begin because they're out of money and run it through March 14th. But Trump then moved the gold posts and move them substantially. He said that what he wants Congress to do before he takes office is to, to eliminate the United States government's federal government's debt ceiling. It's exceptionally politically sensitive and it carries real risks. If the U.S. ever were to actually break its debt ceiling, it would be in technical default on its bonds. And that would shake the U.S. Treasury market and really shake global markets. The second piece of the ask from Trump is that they pass what's called a clean continuing resolution. That doesn't include any other

priorities in it. The deal that they had reached on Tuesday included money for farmers. It included more than $100 billion in disaster aid for North Carolina and Florida and a bunch of other legislative priorities that both parties had sought. And Trump suggested that any Republican lawmakers who were to vote for the clean CR that also doesn't address that ceiling should be primaried by fellow Republicans. And from fiscal policy to monetary policy, Donald Trump also looms large. The Fed has delivered another quarter percentage rate cut, but the outlook is uncertain, according to Fed Chair, Jay Powell.

So I would say today was a closer call, but we decided it was the right call. Persistent inflation, a still strong U.S. economy, and the possible impact of Trump's economic policies make the Fed's mandate even more difficult in the new year. Since September, the Fed has walked back expectations of rate cuts in 2025 from a full percentage point to now just half. Our Fed reporter Howard Schneider asked Jay Powell about how the Fed is gauging Trump's possible impact on the economy in the year to come. So they will say, and he said too early, not enough information, call us in six months or whatever, But made no mistake, they're starting to puzzle through this.

And the staff are starting to model different scenarios. And in fact, Powell said that some of the members, as they penciled in, fewer rate cuts next year at a slower pace of rate cutting and slightly firmer inflation, said they were conditioning that outlook on likely fiscal policy to come. Here's Powell at the press conference. When the path is uncertain, you go a little bit slower. It's not unlike driving on a foggy night or walking into a dark room full of furniture. He just slowed down. Powell also weighed in on Trump's idea of starting a crypto reserve. We're not allowed to own Bitcoin.

The Federal Reserve Act says what we can own, and we're not looking for a law change. You know, Austin Goolsby was asked about this a couple weeks ago before the meeting, and he said, well, it kind of gives me indigestion. They consider it an asset class, a highly speculative asset class, not a currency. Beyond the U.S. economy, if you want to know more about how Europe is preparing, for Trump 2.0 and his tariff plan. Listen to this week's episode of Econ World with Carmel Grimmons. It's out now wherever you get your podcasts.

Thousands of Amazon workers will walk off the job today in the crucial crunch of a holiday season. Union officials say the retailer failed to come to the bargaining table to negotiate contracts. The US has reported its first severe case of bird flu in a Louisiana resident who is hospitalized in critical condition. California has been a. declared an emergency, as the H5N1 virus spread more widely in dairy herds and infected dozens of

farm workers this year. At least 100 North Korean troops deployed to Russia have been killed and a thousand injured in combat against Ukrainian forces in the Kursk region. That's according to a South Korean lawmaker citing the country's spy agency. Iran's oil industry this year has generated more than $50 billion in revenue for Tehran. That's despite tough sanctions from Western nations that severely limit where that oil can be sold. And as our senior commodities correspondent, Jonathan Saul has been reporting,

those sanctions are partly why nearly half of Iran's oil is now being managed by Iran's revolutionary guards. It all started back in roughly around 2012, when Iran started to really feel the heat from Western sanctions, and they had to come up with a plan of how best to fund the Revolutionary Guards. So essentially the Revolutionary Guards were given the oil, and they have to then come up with a planner, marketing, distributing, shipping, the exports, and they get to keep

the proceeds of it. And it all came about also because the Revolutionary Guards became so adept at sanctions busting through a series of networks, ploys, using everything from front companies to Shadow Fleet tankers, that they became increasingly. able to export from the point of origin to the actual destination. So what does this oil mean for conflicts around the region? The exports that are used and facilitated via the IRGC have essentially helped to bankroll a lot of the militia groups that have been involved in the axis of resistance against Israel, but also consolidating their position over various countries, including level.

in the case of Hezbollah, Yemen, with regards to the Houthis, and also Iraqi militias, together with Syria. Now, with the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, it's going to become a lot more complicated for groups such as Hezbollah to get their financing as clearly as they did beforehand. And how has Iran responded to your reporting? Well, so far, there's not been any official comment from any Iranian officials. We also try to approach major organisations such as the IRGC and the oil ministry, and we haven't received any response so far. Today's Recommended Read is the latest instalment in our fentanyl series about the chemical brokers who are funneling fentanyl ingredients from China to Mexico's cartels.

For more on fentanyl's global supply chain, have a listen to our summer special episode. There's a link to that and the special report in the pod description. For more on any of the stories you heard today, check out Reuters.com or the Reuters app. Don't forget to follow us on your favorite podcast player. We'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show.