Reuters World News - Putin in the Gulf, Haley on stage and Italy’s surprise for foreign workers

Episode Date: December 6, 2023

Russian President Vladimir Putin talks oil and conflict as he visits the UAE and Saudi Arabia on a rare trip abroad. Nikki Haley looks to make the most of her moment as Republicans go head-to-head without Trump in tonight’s debate. Italy’s right-wing government talks tough on migrants while opening up to foreign workers. Plus, nuclear gets a boost at COP28 but fossil fuels deal is in the balance. 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, Vladimir Putin talks oil and conflict on a whirlwind trip to the Gulf. Nikki Haley tries to seize her moment in tonight's debate. Kopp gets down to business on fossil fuel negotiations. And in Italy, Georgia Maloney's surprising twin-track approach to migration. It's Wednesday, December 6th. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes. Every weekday. I'm Kim Vinal in London.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is on a diplomatic blitz. He's visiting the UAE and Saudi Arabia today before hosting Iranian president, Abraham Reisi, in Moscow on Thursday. Mark Trevelyan is lead writer for Russia. Mark, Putin has rarely left Russia since the war in Ukraine started. Why are there sudden bursts of travel? So there are a couple of things going on that affect the timing. One is that obviously we're in the middle of a huge crisis in the Middle East, and Putin wants to

demonstrate that he is a player in that region. Another is that it's an important moment on the oil markets where Russia is trying to work with OPEC countries to support the price of oil. And the third reason is that Putin has expected very shortly to announce that he's going to be running for another six years in office in an election next March. And so it's helpful to him also to be seen to be striding the world stage at this point in time. What does he actually hope to achieve on these visits? I think the importance will be partly symbolic. So as far as the oil markets are concerned, Russia is determined to show that it is working

very closely with these countries. The other thing is that this is a trip that will probably irk the United States in some ways. Firstly, because the United States generally doesn't like to see OPEC working effectively to make oil more expensive because that has an impact on US consumers. And secondly, the United States has been a strategic partner of Saudi Arabia for 80 years, although there have been plenty of bumps in that relationship. And so to see Putin sort of muscling in on that relationship with the crown prince of Saudi Arabia is something the United States will be watching quite closely.

Putin's visit to the oil rich nations comes as the global community meets about an hour away in Dubai to tackle climate change. Putin will not be attending, but our very own Tara Oaks is. So Tara, let's start with the good news. Yes, hi Kim. There have been some headline moments of collaboration, including some of the world's biggest dairy companies joining an alliance trying to cut methane. So oil and gas extraction is a problem releasing methane into the atmosphere. and we've seen some work on that here, but also cows are a part of the problem. So some of the global dairy companies getting involved there.

And nuclear power is back in fashion. John Kerry's launched an international plan to boost nuclear fusion, which could produce vast amounts of power. And as we get to the pointy end of the conference, what progress has there been on the fossil fuel debate? Fossil fuels remain the major point of contention here. So negotiators are beavering away behind the scenes. They have a tough job ahead of them, though, because they're not just trying to convince the majority of parties. For a statement to be approved, it has to be approved by nearly 200 unanimous parties. So negotiators are trying to bridge this divide between big oil-producing nations

and those who are more vulnerable to climate change. Four Republican presidential candidates who are not Donald Trump are scheduled to face off in their fourth debate tonight. Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramoswamy, and Chris Christie will all be on stage. Right now, Haley has some momentum and is challenging DeSantis for a very distant number two to Trump. Graham Slattery is in Alabama for the occasion. So, Graham, what does Haley need to do here? Well, what Haley would like to do is have a breakout moment that really catches the attention of a lot of undecided voters. That's something that did occur during the first debate in August.

It really boost her candidacy from that of and also ran to a serious player. The field is winnowing down, but nobody is making much of a dent in Trump's lead. Is there pressure on anyone like Chris Christie to drop out and throw their support behind Haley? There is some pressure, certainly. Chris Christie is perhaps a bit of a unique situation because he's really been explicit about staking his entire campaign on the state of New Hampshire, which the second nominating state. In terms of your vacant Ramoswamy, there's probably less pressure simply because a lot of those voters would probably go to Trump. It's an unkind question to these debaters, but do these debates even matter?

They do matter, but of course their significance is limited by the fact that the person who's leading by over 40 points in most polls is not going to be on the stage. That said, in theory, if Republican voters who were interested in moving beyond Trump did coalesce behind a single candidate or largely coalesce behind a single candidate, statistically it would be a much more interesting race. Washington is for now ruling out restricting arms shipments to Israel despite a soaring civilian death toll in Gaza.

Officials have told Reuters that the U.S. believes negotiating privately with Israel to change its tactics is effective. Washington has started imposing visa bans on Israeli settlers implicated in attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. Joe Biden says he may have skipped running for re-election if Donald Trump wasn't also in the race. Biden made the remarks in Boston at the start of a December fundraising blitz. On Friday, he heads to California to tap Hollywood stars such as Stephen Spielberg and Rob Reiner. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky cancelled an address to the U.S. Senate

as talks stall on a multi-billion dollar funding package for his war-torn country. Republicans in Congress want the aid tied to concessions on U.S. immigration policy. After months of blocking military promotions, Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville says he will lift his hold on all but a handful of generals. The Conservative Senator from Alabama blocked hundreds of promotions to protest. the Pentagon's payment of abortion-related travel costs. Researchers have discovered the oldest known fossils of mosquitoes dating to 130 million years ago, and it turns out that back then, male mosquitoes were the bloodsuckers too. Signs of a slowdown in the US labor market are lifting stocks.

Carmel Crimmins is here with more. Yes, US job openings fell to their lowest level since August 2021. That's reinforcing expectations that the Fed will cut interest rates next year to avert recession. That sentiment even lifted Chinese stocks. They'd taken a hit after Moody's cut its credit outlook for the country. In general, Chinese equities have had a rough time for this year. The CSI 300 Index is down about 12% so far, and reporting by our colleagues in Beijing and Shanghai shows that young Chinese people

are increasingly steering clear of stocks to invest in gold instead. You can check out their story today on Reuters.com. right-wing government talks tough on migration. Prime Minister Georgia Maloney is trying to curb a surge in the numbers of North Africans arriving in Italy illegally. But she's also raising quotas for work visas for non-EU citizens. Alvisei Aramlini is in Rome. Alvise, you spoke to a man named Madhu Kulibali for your story.

Tell us about him. So he comes from Guinea and like many other sub-Saharan African migrants he came to it. Italy to Europe, basically looking for fortune. He told us that he thought that when he left for Europe, he thought that he would find paradise over here. Obviously, the paradise didn't materialize, but he said he got a lucky break because somebody told him about this opportunity

to work for the Florence bus company. And now he sees himself as a model for other African and non-African, migrants in Italy. Because he is the first migrant to be trained and hired by the Tuscany regional bus company to work as a driver. How does his experience fit with the experience of other migrants who have come to Italy? Well, so he is an example of how the Italian labor market is opening up to foreigners, partly because there are some jobs that are low paid and many. Italians don't want to do, and partly because Italy is suffering from an acute demographic crisis.

So there are fewer and fewer young people, fewer and fewer Italians who are entering the labor market and is having great repercussions. How major of a shift is this for the government? This opening towards economic migrants is remarkable and significant coming from a very right-wing government, which in its public stance, it's very, very tough towards migration. They have gone after NGOs that run naval rescue operations. They've pledged to build more migrant detention centers. They've struck a controversial deal with Albania, which foresees the building of migrant detention camps there. But it seems that the economic realities of Italy are forcing it to take a more nuanced approach or sort of a twin-track approach, being tough on one side, but also

opening up on the other. That's it for today's episode of Reuters World News. We'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show. 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.