Reuters World News - Putin in Vietnam, seafarer shortage and South Africa’s new government

Episode Date: June 20, 2024

Russian president Vladimir Putin’s visit to Vietnam is a gamble for the Southeast Asian nation. Yemeni Houthi attacks in the Red Sea deal another blow to an industry already facing a global shortage of seafarers. And a look at the new coalition government in South Africa as the African National Congress shares power for the first time in 30 years. Plus, Russia and North Korea sign a mutual defense pact agreeing to provide military help if either face attacks. 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, Vietnam's bamboo diplomacy is put to the test with Vladimir Putin in town. Uthi attacks in the Red Sea add to a global shortage of seafarers and the tricky path ahead for South Africa's new government. It's Thursday, June 20th. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes every weekday. I'm Tara Oaks in Rome. And I'm Jonah Green in Jupiter,

Florida. Louisiana has passed a law requiring a display of the Ten Commandments in every single public school classroom, making the state the only one in the country with such a law. Governor Jeff Landry said the move was to, quote, expand faith in public schools. The ACLU has said it will sue to block the law, saying it violates the constitutional separation of church and state. A heat wave is setting records and settings. Central and Northeast states, and officials are warning it could become a deadly weather event. Around 80 million people from Indiana to New England are sweltering in 90-plus degree Fahrenheit temperatures, which are expected to last until the weekend.

And in Saudi Arabia, the extreme heat has become deadly. As nearly 2 million Muslims reached the end of their Hodge pilgrimage to Mecca this week, at least 562 have died. as temperature soared past 124 degrees. Russian President Vladimir Putin announcing a deal with North Korea on a visit to Pyongyang, his first in 24 years. Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un have signed a mutual defense pact, promising to help each other if attacked.

At a rare press conference, Kim calls the deal an alliance. The agreement is one of the highest profile moves by Moscow in Asia in years. Vladimir Putin is getting a warm welcome in Hanoi. 34-year-old photographer Nguyen Doy Khan says the Russian president is his idol. Putin's trip, on the heels of a visit to North Korea, is a gamble for Vietnam. Reuters Southeast Asia Bureau Chief K. K. Johnson explains, is actually a big prize for him on this trip, because while his alliance with China is quite well known, and North Korea, like Russia, is isolated internationally,

Vietnam has alliances, or at least very good relations with the United States, with European countries, all countries that are very interested in isolating Putin. And so for him to be welcomed in Vietnam is quite a point. publicity coup for him. What are the risks to Vietnam? Well, the United States, actually, the embassy of the United States in Hawaii took a rather rare step of openly criticizing this and saying that no country should be hosting Putin due to his actions in Ukraine.

And that's a rather strong stance. Vietnam obviously knows that it may face disproval, but it also has some upsides. What are those upsides for Hanoi? Hanoi practices something that they call bamboo diplomacy, and what that means is they do not want to be seen as favoring any one great power. And also, though there's some reputational risk, Vietnam is also a good ally for the United States in Asia. It's seen as a hedge a little bit against China.

and so I think there may be, you know, we're told by unless there may be some calculation that I know I can weather this disapproval. Yemen's Houthi rebels are believed to have sunk a bulk carrier this month in the Red Sea. The tutor went down after being struck by missiles and an explosive-laden remote-controlled boat. Unsurprisingly, such attacks are putting seafarers off sailing through the vital maritime corridor. It's another staffing headache for an industry already facing a shortage. of seafarers after the COVID pandemic and the war in Ukraine. Jonathan Saul in London has been reporting on the story. Seafarers are the lifeblood of world trade and if there's any prospect

that they will start to decline in terms of the requisite numbers needed to crew vessels, that's a massive problem and a big warning sign for the global economy. I think it will become much more of a prominent issue in coming months ahead, especially as this crisis shows no signs of abating in the Red Sea. Why have incidents in the Red Sea in particular impacted these numbers of seafarers? The Red Sea is probably one of the worst examples of a high risk zone based by seafarers for decades. They face everything from missile and drone attacks to possibility of submersibles, boats potentially also firing at them. One of the issues also is that the critical waterway itself is quite narrow at certain points. It relies on very complex navigational maneuvers,

but also a lot of awareness. And that puts crews already on high alert as they sail through these areas. And they also have to contend with the prospect of their ships being sunk, their lives being lost and possible damage as well to the ships over a period of many hours. And are companies trying to address this in any way, trying to keep seafarers or attract new people to do it? Well, certainly what they've tried to do is they've reached various agreements with unions that will mean that seafarers get extra pay, but also the right to refuse to sail through those

arrows. But in a complex global economy, the prospects of going to see are much less interesting or attractive than they were, say, 50 years ago, partly because the risk, but also partly because the long hours, the pay and general conditions. To South Africa now, where President Cyril Ramaphosa pledged to fight inequality as he was sworn in for a second term of office. The people of South Africa have stressed that they are impatient with political bickery and the endless blame game amongst politicians and political parties. His African National Congress Party is sharing power for the first time in 30 years

after losing its parliamentary majority in last month's election. Nellie Payton is in Johannesburg. So this is really the start of a new era in South African politics. So in this government, the ANC is partnering with its biggest rival, which is the Democratic Alliance, the DA, South Africa's biggest opposition party. And these two parties, the AMC and the DA, have spent the entire campaign attacking each other and saying that they would never work together. And now we see these two parties forming a government. So how will they work together? It's still somewhat unclear, to be honest. One of the particularities of this government is that

they only had two weeks to pull it together. There's a constitutional deadline of 14 days between the election result and the first sitting of parliament. So these were really scrambled last-minute negotiations. And it's fair to say that while the broad contours of this unity government have been agreed, the details are still yet to be worked out. In the agreement that the parties have signed, the DA is supposed to get approximately proportional representation in government. So this means that the DA had about half the votes of the ANC. We could expect it to get maybe half of the cabinet position. Another part of the agreement says that decisions must be made by consensus.

The way they've written the rules of this unity government makes it very difficult for any party to push through a decision without the agreement of the other one. That's it for Thursday. We'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show. To never miss an episode, subscribe on your favorite podcast play. or download the Reuters app.