Reuters World News - Pleas for Gaza newborns, David Cameron's return and tiny Tuvalu's big deal

Episode Date: November 13, 2023

Israeli forces are pushing to enter Gaza’s main al-Shifa hospital, where medics said patients including newborn babies were dying for lack of fuel. Pope Francis makes the rare move of dismissing a conservative US bishop. And how climate change has thrust the tiny Pacific Islands nation of Tuvalu into the spotlight – and a big diplomatic deal with Australia.  Listen Now: What to expect from the Biden-Xi meeting Listen Now: SpaceX employees say they’re paying the price for Musk’s push to colonize Mars 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, doctors beg for fuel to save newborn babies in Gaza's hospitals. The Pope dismisses a conservative US bishop. David Cameron makes a surprise return to UK politics, and a historic deal with Tuvalu is a win for Australia over China. It's Monday, November 13th. 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.

medical staff in Gaza operate in the dark, stitching up a patient's head by torchlight. A health worker holds a mobile phone to illuminate the thread and scissors as they work on the wound. The enclave's health system is close to collapse after a month-long Israeli offensive to root out militant group Hamas.

Al-Sheifa, the largest hospital in Gaza, has effectively ceased to function. That's according to the World Health Organization. A doctor there said the bombing had forced staff to remove premature babies, from incubators. Three of the babies have since died and doctors say they expect more to perish each day. Mohamed Obede is a medicine-cent-francierge at Al-Shefa. The problem is to be sure that we can evacuate the new and eight patients because we have

about 57 to 40 cases of the new age, a premature baby. We have about 17 other patients in the ICU and we have about 600 admitted patients with ill-breded which need a medical care. So situation is very bad. We need help. Israel's military has said it offered to evacuate newborn babies and had placed 300 litres of fuel at Al-Shifa's entrance, but both gestures were blocked by Hamas. Hamas denied that it refused the fuel and said the hospital was under the authority of Gaza's health ministry.

White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has said Hamas is using hospitals to house fighters and weapons, which he said was a violation of the laws of war. It's a risk off day in markets. US stock futures are down after Moody's lowered its outlook on US credit to negative. We've another government shut down looming unless Congress can agree a spending bill by Friday, but so far no sign of a compromise. Moody's cited the political gridlock in D.C. is a contributing factor for its outlook downgrade.

It's the last rating agency to hold a AAA rating for the US government. China has also dampened the mood. Its annual shopping festival, known as Singles Day, looks to have been a relatively lackluster affair. But there's plenty of data to drive sentiment one way or the other this week. We've got US consumer inflation and retail sales figures, Chinese retail sales, and of course, that November 17th deadline for Congress to agree a deal. A whirlwind morning in British politics. Former Prime Minister David Cameron is returning to government as foreign minister. Interior Minister Suella Braverman has also been sacked after a row of a pro-Palestinian protests.

It's the latest reset for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, whose party is badly lagging in the polls ahead of an election expected next year. Cameron's return suggests Sunak wants to bring in more centrist, experienced hands, rather than appease the right of his party, which supported Braverman. Cameron resigned as Prime Minister after Brexit, setting off one of the most turbulent periods in UK political history, with four prime ministers in eight years. Pope Francis has fired a conservative bishop, who's one of his biggest critics.

Bishop Joseph Strickland is fiercely opposed to the Pope's attempts to make the church more welcoming to the LGBT community and laypeople. Philip Pulella has covered the Vatican for 40 years. Phil, can you ever remember a bishop being fired before? It's extremely rare that the Pope actually fires a bishop's order, dismisses him outright. It has happened perhaps three times over the past two decades. So what reason did the Vatican give for Strickland's removal?

They gave no reason whatsoever, which is pretty common when a bishop is subject to an investigation. The investigation, the results in investigation, are usually kept pretty much confidential. But there's a rather long and complicated backstory to Strickland. He accused the Pope of undermining the deposit of the faith. He was very active on social media. He backed a very, very right-wing bishop who said on social media that all Democrats would go to hell. He, Strickland, and the priest who said that all Democrats would go to hell are obviously Trump supporters.

So there's an intermingling of church politics and national politics in the United States. So what has Strickland said? Well, he has defended himself and he said he would do it all again. He said that there are dark forces within the church who are advising the Pope to do this. So it remains to be seen now what he will do. However, he already has become a martyr in a sense to conservative, to ultra-conservative Catholics who backed him before with one conservative commentator saying on social media, this is war. So it probably will continue to become polemical or continue to be polemical.

The tiny island nation of Tuvalu has agreed a historic migration and security pact with Australia, spurred on by climate change. The deal creates a pathway for Tuvalu's citizens to come to Australia as rising oceans threaten their homeland. Kirsty Needham covers the Pacific Islands for Reuters. Kirsty, this deal is a pretty significant win for Tuvalu's Prime Minister, Cassia Natano, right? That's right. It's quite a coup for his government. So this deal with Australia to provide migration pathway for the population is a culmination of a lot of international advocacy that they've been doing. it's not only visas that this deal provides for Tuvalu,

but it also says that Australia recognises Tuvalu's sovereignty and its statehood, regardless of rising seas. So that means if Tuvalu disappears, if the tides take it over in 50 years' time, then Australia recognises it's still a nation. And that means it still has these vast economic exclusive zones with fishing rights, so a very savvy government indeed. How big of a threat is climate change for this island nation? So Tuvalu is often cited as one of the most at-risk nations for climate change.

It's a low-lying atoll nation. There are nine atolls. Half of the population lives in one atoll. It's estimated by 2050, half of the land in that capital will be flooded by the tide every day. This treat is also a big victory for Australia, right? What it does provide for Australia is the right to veto to Valu from signing a security. or a defence agreement with any other nation. And for any other nation, we could probably insert in their China, which has been very rapidly signing security agreements and policing

ties throughout the Pacific Islands. Australia said this isn't necessarily a blueprint for other island nations, but the offer of Australia granting permanent residency to Pacific Islands is something that we'll see more of next year. They'll have an annual ballot where 3,000 permanent migration visas will be allocated across the region each year. So you will see Australia seeking to use this offer of residency to bind its Pacific neighbours more closely to Australia. Tuvalu won't be attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit this week, but you can find out all about the historic meeting between she and Biden at that conference in a previous podcast. The link is in the description to today's pod.

For the Republic against anti-Semitism. That was the message of over 100,000 protesters in Paris over the weekend. Former Presidents Nicolaus Arcozy and Francois Hollande joined them. As did the leader of France's far-right party, who was booed by some. US Senator Tim Scott has suspended his run for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. After months of burning through campaign cash without making a significant dent in opinion polls, Scott told Fox News he felt voters had given him the clear message Not now, Tim.

President Vladimir Zelenskyi, warning Ukrainians to prepare for new waves of Russian attacks on infrastructure as winter approaches. Russia launched a missile attack on Kiev over the weekend for the first time in nearly two months. Iceland is preparing for a volcanic eruption at any moment.

Thousands of people have been evacuated from the fishing town of Grindovic after thousands of earthquakes were detected. That's it for today's episode. We'll be back on Tuesday with our daily headline show. If you get a chance, do check out our weekend podcasts about the impact on SpaceX workers from Elon Musk's rush to Mars

and of course that Biden and she meeting. There are links to both in the description of today's podcast. And 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 favorite podcast player or download the Reuters app.