Reuters World News - Russia’s jail ‘carousel’, Australia hit by misinformation, Ukraine war divides the G20

Episode Date: September 7, 2023

Australia’s upcoming referendum on Indigenous rights finds itself the target of online misinformation. And experts say it’s working. Human rights lawyers say Russia is repeatedly arresting and releasing some people for minor offenses as a tool to quell dissent against the conflict in Ukriane. And leaders of the world's richest countries are heading to New Delhi for the G20 summit - without Xi or Putin. 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, the Russian war critics caught in the jail carousel. Divides over Ukraine cast a shadow over the G20. And the online influencers using misinformation to undermine Australia's indigenous referendum. It's Thursday, September 7th. This is Reuters World News with 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. First, the headlines making news around the world.

Mexico's Supreme Court has struck down a federal law criminalizing abortion, paving the way for the procedure to be legally accessible in the federal health care system. I'm willing to hear that. I remain very skeptical. That's a Georgia judge on whether Donald Trump and 18 co-defendants can stand trial together as soon as next month in an election interference case. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee gave prosecutors 10 days to explain how they, quote, could possibly keep these defendants together. The devastating moment a Russian rocket slams into a marketplace in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kashi-Eninovica, killing at least 17 people and wounding dozens.

The attack overshadowed a visit by Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. Spanish soccer star Jenny Hermosa has filed a criminal complaint against Luis Rubiales, the head of the country's soccer federation, over the unsolicited kiss he gave her during World Cup celebrations. Hermoso's complaint paves the way for prosecutors to open a case against Rubiales who has faced huge criticism over the kiss. Japan has joined a new space race with the launch of its lunar exploration craft, the smart lander for investigating Moon or Slim.

Dubbed the Moon sniper due to its precision, Slim is set to touch down on the near side of the moon, close to Mari Nectaris, a lunar sea. Time now for markets and investors are back worried about inflation. Stronger than expected US services data is fueling concerns that interest rates are going to have to stay higher for longer. Higher rates puts particularly pressure on growth stocks, including the tech sector. But Apple is taking a particular hit on reports China has ordered officials at central government agencies not to use its iPhone for work. That news is putting a downer on the company ahead of its fall event next week, where analysts expected to launch a new line of iPhones. Leaders of the world's richest and most powerful

countries will attend a two-day G20 summit in India's capital New Delhi starting Friday. It's the first time India is hosting the meeting. Delhi has been adorned with ornamental flowers and fountains and cutouts of big, languor primates to stop any smaller rhesus monkeys from causing havoc. Aftab Ahmed is there to witness it all. Aftab, Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants to use this summit to present India as an economic powerhouse and a leader of the global south. Is that right?

Modi wants to raise the stature of India and via that, attract his voters in the next election. It will be very interesting because the world is at a very interesting juncture where I think there is a very clear divide between the European nations who have been focusing on the war and other developing countries who feel that this state should not be used for war. And how are we expecting this friction between countries over Ukraine to manifest itself during the summit? So through the year, what we have seen is that in the beginning there were a lot of

walkouts, the French finance minister in the March finance tract walked out of one of the meetings and he was insistent that the Ukraine war should be the focus and condemning Russia should be the focus of G20. That complicates matter, right? I mean, Russia is one of the members over there. It has the backing of China and an agreement with that kind of hardened positions is then very difficult to come out with. Because as you know, a joint statement means that all the 20 countries have to agree on that statement. If India is unable to come out with a leader's declaration, this will be the first time in the history of G20s, 20 years, that a leader's declaration does not come out.

And that will cast a shadow on India's position. Some human rights lawyers in Russia say authorities there are using repeated arrests for minor offences to clamp down on opposition to the conflict in Ukraine. Mike Collette White is one of the editors on the story. Mike, what's going on here? Well, what the Russians are doing is they are using what the lawyers in Russia are calling carousel arrests, which is sort of merry-go-round arrests. And that effectively means that you can pick up anyone on a minor misdemeanor,

for example, swearing at a passerby or disobeying a police officer on the street, put them in a detention center for 10 days to two weeks. And then immediately that person is released from that particular detention. They are re-arrested on a separate minor misdemeanor. Royd is reported on the case of Timofi Rudenko. What happened to him? So Redenco is a good case in point here. He's a 30-year-old former military psychologist.

And we spoke to his mother who explained that he was arrested five times over two months during the summer on minor crimes. Each time that he was released, He was detained again immediately. On July the 21st, he was arrested a sixth time, but this time on a much more serious charge, that of justifying terrorism. And that is a crime that, if you are convicted, can carry up to seven years in jail.

So Rudenko's mother is convinced that the reason that the authorities have leveled the much more serious charge against him is because of posts on his social media channels previously that were critical of the war in Ukraine. Reuters was unable to independently verify Rudenko's mother's version of events or to contact Rudenko in detention. His lawyers declined to discuss his case. Russian police and prosecutor authorities did not respond to requests for comment. How widespread is this phenomenon? We've found seven cases, so we're not talking about something that's on a mass scale.

So what's the impact of all of this? Well, these carousel arrests are not illegal. They are allowed under the system. But what the lawyers we're speaking to and experts sort of a broader saying is that what the authorities use these short arrests for is to buy time to build more serious cases against those they know are opposed to the Ukraine war. And so the critics say it is an intimidatory tactic to silence all criticism of the war. Russia's top investigative body, the investigative committee, its interior ministry, and the prosecutor general's office didn't respond to requests for comment on the phenomenon of carousel arrests or individual cases. In Australia, online influencers are spreading misinformation ahead of a referendum next month to constitutionally recognize the country's indigenous people. And experts say they're playing a big role in the debate. Byron K is in Sydney and has this story.

So Byron, who are these so-called influencers? Well, there's quite a range of these people. Some of them are politicians. Many of them, though, are people who are previously anonymous, and they rose to some sort of prominence during the COVID kind of lockdown era and the vaccine mandate era. And these people seem to have found themselves a new target. So what sort of stuff have they been spreading on?

line. What are they saying? There's a wide range of misinformation that is being circulated. Some of it is simply bad faith speculation and they are simply seizing on something that's outdated. Then there are some people that are taking the full conspiracy theory approach. It's a plot by the New World Order to take over Australia. One guy is very, very certain that the voice will result in Australia's beaches, forests and then other kind of national parks, public land, seized so that Australians will have to pay money to answer them. This is not reflected in the subject of the referendum in any way. Are these falsehoods sticking? That is a very hard thing to measure, but what the people that studied, the misinformation kind of researchers see huge amounts of

virality in a lot of these posts. And we've seen polls showing that support for the referendum is sliding. Are people or researchers able to point to the reason behind this drop? There are a variety of reasons for that. But the misinformation, according to the political experts that I've spoken to, it is having an effect. That's because Australians are basically being asked to make a decision about something that they are learning about for the first time. They're seeing all this kind of material.

A lot of it is not verified, not real. and that is forming the general weather of how they're kind of absorbing it. The Rolling Stones have announced their first album of original music for 18 years and first since the death of drummer Charlie Watts. Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood, the surviving core of the 61-year-old band

appeared on stage in London's Hackney to launch the appropriately named Hackney Diamonds. 80-year-old Jagger said the band were pretty fired up to record new music. I'm not saying we're big edit about it because we're pleased with it. I'll drink to that and we have. hope you all like.

The album has a contemporary sound with a mixture of rock, ballads, dance, and a countryish kind of thing, he said. Universal Music also dropped the video for the album's first single, Angry. That's it for today's episode of Reuters World News. We'll be back with our daily headline show on Friday. 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.