Reuters World News - Saudi bypasses Biden and recession fears re-ignite

Episode Date: April 6, 2023

Why Saudi Arabia’s crown prince is looking to Beijing not Washington as he goes into diplomatic overdrive. More violence at a Jerusalem holy site puts the Middle East on edge for Passover and Ramadan. U.S. recession fears stalk investors. Join us on the high seas with a migrant rescue ship in Europe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, why Saudi Arabia's crown prince is looking to Beijing, not Washington, as he goes into diplomatic overdrive. New fears of a U.S. recession have investors worried, as AI stocks take a tumble. And our reporter joins a high-stakes mission on a migrant rescue ship in the Mediterranean. It's Thursday, April 6th. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes. I'm Kim Vennel in London. And I'm Carmel Crimmons in Dublin. We start in Jerusalem, a city on edge for the Passover and Ramadan holidays

after more violence at the Alaksa Mosque. Israeli police clashed again with Palestinians at the holy site. The second day of violence triggered a cross-border exchange of fire in Gaza, with rockets being launched into Israel. Israel's retaliated with airstrikes on compounds it says were training camps for militants. The confrontations have raised fears the situation could spiral. Al-Axa is a tinderbox of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The last time Israel raided it in 2021, it set off a 10-day war with Gaza.

Recession fears have shifted to center stage for global markets. Carmel, what's the latest? We've had a wave of weak economic data, and that has investors worried. US services have slowed more than expected, and employers are hiring less workers unexpected. Now, on the one hand, that shows that the feds fight against inflation is beginning to hit home, and it may be able to pause its aggressive rate hikes. But investors are worried that job growth could slow so much that the US doesn't get a soft landing, but a hard one. And of course, bankers and tech workers, they're already facing a bleak job market after the recent woes of Silicon

Valley Bank and Credit Suisse. But now a new darling is starting to feel the pressure. AI stock sank by double digits this week after one company was accused of questionable accounting practices by a shortseller. The company in question, C3AI, has lost nearly 40% of its value since Monday. It has denied the allegations. Now here's a quick look at the rest of the headlines making news around the world. Donald Trump's called on fellow Republicans to defund the FBI. It's a stretch. The GOP is not known for wanting to defund law enforcement, and it won't help him beat 34 felony counts for falsifying business records. Those charges were brought by the state of New York, not federal authorities.

Trump's former Vice President Mike Pence says he won't appeal a judge's ruling, requiring him to appear before the grand jury probing the January 6th attack. Pence will have to testify about conversations he had with Trump leading up to the capital assault. North Korea is accusing the United States and South Korea of taking tensions in the region to the brink of nuclear war. State media there issued a report calling joint military, littered drills by the US and the South, reckless, adding that they were driving the peninsula

to an irreversible catastrophe. Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been diagnosed with leukemia. The 86-year-old media tycoon is in intensive care in Milan. He'd been admitted on Wednesday with breathing problems. A disturbing attack in Brazil, where four children have been killed by a man wielding an axe. The attacker climbed over a war. into their preschool in Santa Catarina. Five other children were injured. On the coast of North Africa, daily rescues are taking place

as thousands of migrants head to Europe. Italy is facing a surge in sea migration from the continent, with more than 28,000 arrivals so far this year. For charities trying to save lives, a change in Italian law now means they must return to port

after each rescue. That, says organisations like doctors without borders, limits the number of people it can save. Our reporter, Darren Zammat-Lupi, joined them for one of their rescues. We're finally raising the anchor to head down to the Central Mediterranean. So yes, I just spent a couple of weeks on the Geo Barrens, operated by MSF, which rescues migrants on the Central Mediterranean route.

It's a large ship. It's the largest NGO vessel that I've worked from, certainly, crewed by professional rescuers and a professional marine crew. We used to do one, two, three rescues before going to disembark. One person I spoke to about these complications, if you like, caused by the recent Italian government decrees and laws, was the project coordinator on board, Virginia Mielgo-Gonzalez. Last year, we could rescue 3,800 people, more or less. With this new decree in place last year, we would have rescued 1,080 people. This is our calculations, and this is because now we are

being instructed to proceed to the place of safety as soon as possible. We're on our way to intercept a wooden boat, carrying anything between 150 to 200 people. That's a double-decker, apparently. We knew it was going to happen because the weather was dead calm on the Libyan coast with a southerly wind which helps the boats to depart. Once we got there, it was quite clear that this was a vessel in distress. It was heavily overloaded, rocking quite violently,

but very clear to anyone who could see it, that there was no way that these guys would have made it to Italy. Welcome to the Gio Barons. We are an NGO, and we are not going back to Libya. The most important piece of information that these people want to hear is that they are going to be safely taken to Europe. That's all they care about. I've spoken to countless migrants over the...

years on various rescue missions. It's always, I would rather die than return to Libya. You guys rescued us and give us another life. So I just want to thank you guys. Thank you so much. Thank you. This has been Darren Zammat-Lupi in Malta. Do you remember Joe Biden's infamous fist bump with the Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman? Well, it looks like the effort for rapprochement was all for nothing. The Saudi leader is going his own way, cutting oil output to push up prices, building relations with US foes, and working closely with China. Beijing even hosted the first formal meeting of the foreign ministers of Iran and Saudi Arabia on Thursday. Reuters Aziz Eliyukubi explains what's changed for

Riyadh. What should we read into Mohammed bin Salman's recent moves? The backdrop of the whole process or his diplomatic overdrive is his uncertainty about. but the US protection. How it looks like is that Washington is losing interests in the Middle East, because if we go back to the 70s and the ages, the US has changed from a net oil importer to becoming now net oil exporter. So the Middle East, and especially Saudi Arabia, is not anymore the most important asset that they need to protect in the Middle East

as it was before. How much of a rebuke is this to President Biden? Yeah, thinking about the Biden administration, I think it's quite bad because they have worked so hard in reaching some kind of agreement with the Saudis. The whole effort by the Biden administration turned out to be for nothing. I think that there is a new reality, which is China rising, the Chinese power rising clearly and trying to assert and to gain influence, globally speaking. then, and they think Saudi Arabia and Iran will have like a major role to play, especially for their oil and also for their influence that they have inside the region. All right, Aziz, thank you so much.

Now, if you're heading to Europe this weekend, not only are you arriving during a four-day holiday for many over Easter, but you'll be landing in the middle of strikes in France, Spain, Portugal, and at London's Heathrow, causing major travel concerns. France is bracing for another day of worker protests today, and as European company news editor Joe Mason explains, that's especially bad news for travellers. We got some data from an organisation called Eurocontrol.

Their data shows that the French strikes alone have caused 1160 hours of delays so far. The strikes there disrupt the ability of airlines to fly, over French airspace, which is one of Europe's busiest transit points. On Wednesday, the French Labour Union said that they would keep up their fight against the planned increase in the legal retirement age. So it's not looking particularly rosy. Be careful who or what you sit beside on your morning commute. Images of two people carrying what appeared to be a live platypus on an Australian train,

has sparked a major police hunt. Passengers on the train were seen touching the mammal. They're rare in Queensland, but also dangerous as they can have venomous spurs. Police say a man's been charged with allegedly removing the platypus from the wild. A woman was also being questioned. And that's a wrap for today's edition of Reuters World News. We'll be back on Friday. Remember, you can follow us on your favourite podcast platform or download the Reuters app.