Reuters World News - Pro-Israel ads in video games, the 'second phase' and the stocks hit by weight-loss drugs

Episode Date: October 30, 2023

Israel's self-declared "second phase" of the war against Hamas sees 600 militant targets hit in Gaza and ground forces pressing into the enclave. The calls for aid to reach civilians mount, as the conflict reaches its fourth week. Graphic pro-Israel ads showing the Oct. 7 attacks appear in video games. Plus, the stocks that are being hit by weight-loss drugs this earnings season. 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, Israel enters what it's called the second phase of the war as its ground forces press into Gaza. The graphic pro-Israel ads making their way into children's video games. And weight loss drugs weigh on the minds of investors during Q3 earnings. It's Monday, October 30th. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes. Every weekday. I'm Kim Vennel in London. Israel says it struck more than 600 militant targets over the past few days

as it continues to expand its ground operations in the Gaza Strip. This second phase of operations has increased international calls for civilians to be protected. Here, people in the Al-Nasir neighborhood rush to pull out survivors and bodies after an airstrike. Israel's increased ground offensive has largely come under the country. cover of darkness and a near total communications and internet blackout. While phone and internet connections have partly returned, outages have severely hampered rescue efforts. Joe Biden has pressed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to protect civilians and allow more aid in. After their call on Sunday, Israel said a dramatic increase in aid

will be allowed in the next few days. But desperation on the ground is leading to desperate actions. Thousands of Gaza residents broke into UN warehouses, grabbing flour and other essential items. This is an indication that people in Gaza have reached a breaking point. Juliet Toma is the spokesperson for the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency. So the levels of frustration and despair are really, very high and people are hitting rock bottom.

In a refugee camp in Gaza's Khan Yunus, a father of six describes living in leaky tents, waiting for hours to use a toilet and having little access to food and water. Rami al-Irkan says they've reached a state where they wish they had died under the rubble to find some rest, adding our life is torn. While people around the world have seen footage from the war in news programming, it's also popped

up in unexpected places. Graphic ads in video games. Cyber reporter Raffles Satta tells a story of one British first grader who was playing a puzzle game on his Android when a video showing Hamas fighters and terrified Israelis appeared. The ad that was seen by this six-year-old child showed some of the most arresting images from the October 7th attack of Hamas on southern Israel, straight from Twitter or telegram type images of violence and terror. You saw rockets, you saw explosions, you saw fire. It's not totally clear how these ads ended up on these really kid-friendly video games. It's often

difficult to understand exactly how ads move across the internet because the ad brokers are not particularly transparent, and the market is quite complex. We do know that the ads were put out by the Israeli government, but what the Israeli government has said is that they specifically told their advertisers to make sure that they were being targeted at adults aged 18 and over. And yet, many children saw them. Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs Head of Digital, David Seranga, said he had no idea how it ended up inside various games. He also defended. the graphic nature of the ad, saying they want the world to understand that what had happened in Israel was a massacre.

Raphael, we've seen no analogous digital effort on behalf of the Palestinians, but they have also said they wanted to sway public opinion by sharing evidence of suffering in Gaza, right? Both sides actually have often resorted to the same strategy, which is showing evidence of alleged atrocities committed by the other side. The Israelis have broadcast arresting images, and in some cases quite gruesome images, of corpses and killings that were carried out by Hamas. And Hamas, in turn, has broadcast images of civilians and children being killed in Israeli bombings. So both of those sides have really tried to win hearts and minds by showing just how callous the other side is with human life. What's a little bit different here is that the Israelis have pushed,

whether on purpose or inadvertently, into areas where you don't traditionally see this kind of gruesome advertising. And that includes games. We had one woman whose game of solitaire was interrupted. And in general, the people that I've spoken to say that they have not reacted well to these kinds of ads. Reporters Saint-Frontair has said that Reuters, Reuters, Isam Abdullah was killed in southern Lebanon by a targeted strike from the direction of the Israeli border. The assessment is based on preliminary findings of its investigation, including a ballistic analysis. The report did not conclude who launched the strike against the journalists or provide its underlying analysis. The Israeli Defence Force have not commented on the findings.

It has said it does not deliberately target journalists and is investigating the incident. In Russia, police have taken control of an airport after hundreds of protesters stormed the building looking for Israelis coming off a flight from Tel Aviv. Dagestan is a predominantly Muslim region. In this video, dozens of men can be seen kicking in doors and running through the terminal. This happened after the plane from Israel arrived at the airport in Makachala, the regional capital. 60 people were arrested. The United States has started buying Japanese seafood to supply its military there for the first time.

It's in response to China's ban on the products. That followed Japan's release of treated water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant. McDonald's reports third quarter earnings today with KFC and Taco Bell's parent company Yum brands on Wednesday. Investors are looking for signs that U.S. fast food chains, already contending with inflation, have a new woe, the explosive popularity of weight loss drugs. Walmart has already noted a slight pullback and food consumption among customers taking diabetes drugs like OZemPEC and Wigovi. And Chapportele's CEO says they are monitoring the situation.

Company's editor David Gaffin has been looking at investor concerns with these drugs. It's very interesting because we've seen an effect and concern that comes from the food and packaging industries all the way through the healthcare industries. And while a lot of the food companies are saying that they are monitoring the situation, a lot of what we've seen has been in big reactions in a lot of the healthcare stocks. What parts of health care are most affected? Well, quite a few of them, to be perfectly honest, there's been a bit of a shoot first, ask questions later game going on here, that effectively investors are looking at anything that's sort of tangential that is related to weight loss, things like sleep apnea, medical devices

in things like bariatric surgery, and those stocks have gotten hit pretty hard in the last few months as the likes of Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, the maker of these different drugs, have really taken off. But to be clear, the use of these weight loss drugs hasn't yet decreased the need for bariatric surgeries or sleep apnea solutions, has it? See, that's the thing here, is that this is very early in this process. There have been a couple of companies that have said specific things about the likes of bariatric surgery, you know, the weight loss surgery, where they think that there's been some delay in the sales of these medical devices used in that. Johnson and Johnson actually did say this specifically. But in terms of sleep apnea, in terms of glucose monitoring

and other such devices, there's been a big sell-off in these stocks, but there's not a lot of evidence yet as to what is going to happen. It's very early to tell. Finally, tributes from Hollywood and beyond for Friends star Matthew Perry. Friends creators say it seems impossible that the actor is no longer with us. Perry was found dead in a hot tub at his Los Angeles home at the weekend. The show's principal creative team, Marta Kaufman, David Crane and Kevin Bright said in a joint statement, all we can say is that we feel blessed to have had him as part of our lives. We'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show. To make sure you know what's going

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