Reuters World News - Pentagon’s anti-vax campaign, South Korean shamans and the G7

Episode Date: June 14, 2024

Reuters uncovers a secret anti-vaccination campaign run by the Pentagon to undermine China during the pandemic. A new generation of online shamans revive an ancient tradition in South Korea, amid skepticism of their practices. Plus, after agreeing a loan deal for Ukraine, the G7 leaders' final day agenda includes China and AI discussions with the Pope.   Sign up for the Reuters Econ World newsletter here. Listen to the Reuters Econ World podcast 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, a Reuters investigation uncovers an anti-vaccine campaign run out of the Pentagon. A new generation of online shamans revive an ancient tradition in South Korea. Plus, G7 leaders talk China, meet the Pope, and agree a loan deal for Ukraine. It's Friday, June 14th. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes, every weekday. I'm Jonah Green in New York. And I'm Carmel Crimmons in Dublin. Italian Prime Minister Georgie Maloney

announcing the G7 leaders have agreed a plan to give Ukraine a $50 billion loan using interest from frozen Russian assets. The political agreement was the centerpiece of the opening day of the summit held this year in southern Italy. Today's the final day and China will top the agenda

before Pope Francis puts in a historic appearance to join discussions on AI. We're not backing down. In fact, we're standing together against this illegal aggression. On the sidelines of the summit, President Joe Biden and Ukraine President Vladimir Zelensky signed a 10-year bilateral security agreement

aimed at bolstering Ukraine's defense against Russian invaders. Officials said the deal aimed to commit future U.S. administrations to support Ukraine. It'll also serve as a step towards Ukraine's eventual NATO membership. The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected a bid to restrict access to the abortion pill Miffipristone. The 90 ruling coming two years after the court ended Roe v. Wade is a victory for the Biden administration's efforts to preserve broad access to the drug.

The pill is used to more than 60 percent of abortions in the U.S. Tesla shareholders approved CEO Elon Musk's $56 billion pay package in a big thumbs up for his leadership. The vote passed despite opposition from some large institutional shareholders, but it doesn't mean Musk will get his money. He still faces a legal battle over the pay packet that could last for months. And sticking with big numbers and interesting personalities, do check out the latest episode of my podcast, Reuters Econ World. Every week we go deep on one economic principle or idea behind the news. This week, it's all about neoliberalism and a look at how Argentina is doing six months into Javier Malay's president.

Reuters has uncovered a secret anti-vax campaign run by the Pentagon to undermine China during the pandemic. Despite objections from top diplomats, the U.S. military engaged in clandestine propaganda about COVID vaccines that public health experts say is indefensible. The focus of the operation was the Philippines, a nation hit especially hard by the virus. Christopher Bing, along with his colleague Joel Sheckman have been reporting out the story. So Christopher, what did you find? This is an aspect of military that many people don't realize or don't know about is that the military controls a large network of fake social media accounts and other online profiles, which it can use to influence foreign adversaries. In this case, they were using a mixture of social media

accounts on various platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and several foreign language, social media platforms, popular in Central Asia. So the messages typically focused on this idea that foreign audiences should not trust Chinese pandemic aid. So it would say that their face masks

that they were donating were fake. They would say that the test kits that they were providing didn't work. They would say that the vaccines were ineffective, not real. I think the most surprising message that we saw was that they were pushing this idea that Chinese COVID vaccines, in particular Cinevac, contained a pork derivative because where that message was targeted was in Central Asia

among Muslim majority countries. How did this campaign begin? There was growing interest in increasing the U.S.'s use of clandestine propaganda and influence operations following the 2016 election. when Russian intelligence operatives ran a hack and leak to influence American voters. There was already support and interest in this area that going years later in 2019, policies were instituted through Congress and also within the Defense Department that lessened the approval process and made it easier to run these types of missions globally,

even outside of defined war zones. With the COVID pandemic erupting in 2020, the military looked to employ these tactics while State Department officials voiced caution. Diplomats argued that it was not the right time during a pandemic to spread fear through propaganda because of the ramifications. Nonetheless, the military continued their operations until at least summer of 2021. And so how did it end? The influence operation began in early 2020 with the spread of the coronavirus and ran through

the Trump administration, but it also continued through the beginning of the Biden administration. In January of the Biden administration, when they first came into office, they were notified by social media companies who were dismayed by what they found. They had independently noticed that the military was conducting these operations through fake accounts on their platforms, and they told in the Biden administration that they had seen evidence of the military spreading COVID misinformation. The White House and the National Security Council issued a ban internally on messaging by the military on vaccines, but we continued to see the operation active until later that spring into the early summer. The U.S. military is prohibited

from targeting Americans with propaganda, and Reuters found no evidence that the Pentagon's influence operation did so. The Pentagon spokeswoman said the U.S. military does use platforms, including social media, to counter-maline influence attacks aimed at the U.S. And she noted that China had started a, quote, disinformation campaign to falsely blame the United States for the spread of COVID-19. Trump and Biden's spokespeople did not respond to requests for comment. Min He Jin, CEO of a major K-pop label,

at an emotional press conference in April. Min was defending herself against accusations that she consulted a shaman to make business decisions. She said that she spoke to them, hoping that talking would make her feel better. The episode highlights the skepticism

that surrounds this ancient tradition. But one of the year's biggest films and a new generation of online practitioners are changing that. Hionso Yim has been looking into it. So we want to see a baby sonya, which means baby angel in English. She's a 29-year-old shaman in Seoul with over 300,000 followers on YouTube.

When the client arrived at the shaman parlor, she did bell ringing. She was waving her big fan, and the client started talking about the problem she had or questions over the current relationship. South Korea has a love and hate relationship when it comes to shamanism. On one hand, it's not really hard to find someone who sees a shaman. There was a huge mega-hit film called Exuma,

which also centered on two very cool-looking young shamans. And that also increased interest among young people in this tradition. But at the same time, there is still a stigma. You see this, especially when there's a high-profile public figure who is linked to shamanism. The idea is that because the person went to see a shaman, they are weak-minded or weak-willed. I think for a long time, in the minds of many people, Korean shamaners were these older women wearing very thick makeup in a dark room with an intimidating aura.

But I think people like Aggie, who are essentially very social media savvy, millennial and Gen Z shamans, they are showing people that they can be young, relatable, and also approachable. That's it for Friday, but before we go, let's quickly visit a zoo in Dortmund, Germany. This is where

Oracle orangutan, Walter, has just picked Germany as winners of the opening game of Euro 2024. Europe's soccer championships begin later today in Munich with the hosts up against Scotland. 35-year-old Walter is a veteran of predicting the outcome of soccer matches and made his latest choice by going for a bucket of food decorated with a German football scarf. This is the science, people. And that's it for your Friday update. We'll be back on Monday with our daily headline show.

Make sure you tune in for our special weekend episode. We're looking at the specialist doctors who were building a self-reliant healthcare system in Gaza, their fate and the fate of their mission in the months since October 7th. To make sure you never miss an episode, subscribe on your favourite podcast player or download the Reuters app.