Reuters World News - Shutdown, BBC and Syria’s president in DC

Episode Date: November 10, 2025

A breakthrough in talks over the 40-day U.S. shutdown, with the Senate passing a deal aimed at ending the deadlock. The boss of the BBC and its head of news have quit following accusations of bias, including the way it edited a speech by U.S. President Donald Trump. Syria’s president Ahmed al-Sharaa is meeting Donald Trump for his first-ever talks in Washington, with tackling sanctions a key focus for the rebel-turned-ruler.  Find today's recommended read here. 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

Hi, I'm Carmel Crimmons in Dublin. It's Monday, November 10th. Today, the U.S. Senate pushes along a bill to end the government shutdown. Resignations at the BBC after criticism over editing a Trump speech. And, once a rebel, the Syrian president heads to the White House. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes, seven days a week. Signs of a thaw on the US government shutdown. And it looks like we're getting close to the shutdown ending. You'll know very soon. The Senate has put forward a measure to reopen government. The now 40-day shutdown has sidelined federal workers,

held up food aid and cancelled flights. If the Senate ultimately votes in favour of this measure, it would fund the government until January 30th and stop federal agencies from firing employees in that period. The bill moved forward after a handful of Democrats' broke party ranks and voted to support it. In return, Republicans have agreed to a December vote on extended subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. Those are the subsidies which help lower income Americans pay for private health insurance, and they're due to expire at the end of the year.

It's been the Democrats' sticking point throughout the shutdown. Hopes of an end to the government shutdown are lifting shares around the world. The moves come after a rough week for stock markets. investors have been concerned that valuations for tech stocks are too high, but this vote has given them a greater appetite for risk. They're also hoping that an eventual end to the shutdown will give them greater clarity on how the economy is doing because it would mean federal data can be published again. Across the pond storms at the UK's BBC.

The BBC's boss and its head of news have quit following accusations of bias, including in the way it edited a speech by President Donald Trump. A BBC program edited two parts of his January 6th, 2021 speech, so that he appeared to be encouraging the riot. CEO Tim Davy and head of news Deborah Turnus resigned on Sunday. Paul Sandel is following the story in London. It's unprecedented to lose both of them in one swoop like's happened here. So there's been a dossier of allegations about bias in the organisation,

was sent to the board back in June. This had been leaked to the Daily Teller. newspaper, which has had a drip, drip, drip of allegations over the last week. The most substantial and important is around the Trump documentary, which caused the White House to weigh in and put increasing pressure on the broadcaster to react. And then we had these very, very high-profile resignations. And Paul says the editing of Trump's speech for this documentary was a key reason for those departures. So the report said the documentary was biased in general, in terms of the voices in it very critical of Trump.

But in particular, two parts of a speech were spliced together. So you had one point where he told his supporters that we're going to walk down to the Capitol and they would fight like hell. Fight like hell was a comment made in a different part of the speech, made 50 minutes later. He actually said his supporters would walk down to the Capitol and cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women.

So it completely changed the meaning of that part of the speech. The BBC were already on the back foot and would find a Vative Court to come up with a response. There's been a number of debates at the board level within the BBC, but this certainly massively increased the pressure. It put a global focus on the story and obviously board in a political dimension with the British government, Faye keen to stay in favour with the Trump White House at the moment. Syria's president Ahmed al-Shara meets with U.S. President Donald Trump today in the White House. Our correspondent Timor Azari has been reporting extensively on Syria's rebuild

and says the visit poses an opportunity to give the new leader legitimacy on the world stage. Shara's White House meeting with Trump caps off an incredible year for this rebel-turned-ruler who toppled a tyrant, took power in Damascus and has since toured the world as he seeks international legitimacy and also to put Syria back on the map. So Trump and Shara met in May and Trump announced that all Syria sanctions would be lifted, and they gradually have, but there's one remaining hurdle, and that's the Caesar Act. The Caesar Act is the most stringent, most intense set of sanctions put in place by the U.S. Congress years back that really aimed to sort of choke the Assad government, but also had a strangling

effect on Syria and the Syrian people. The Syrian government has lobbied since the fall of Assad to get those sanctions repealed. Many businessmen we speak to, many investors say that they're skittish, that they don't want to get into the Syrian market as long as those sanctions are there. So the Syrians are hoping to get this repealed before the end of the year, and the Trump administration has actually come out and said they support that. Timor says the U.S. sees an opportunity to rebuild influence in the country after years of diplomatic strain.

The U.S. is clearly gaining a foothold in a region where they were excluded for many years. Syria, for the last 50 or more years, was in a different camp, had very good relations with Russia, had very good relations with Iran. And we see today that Iran has been expelled, Russia's remit has been limited, and we reported that Reuters just a couple days ago that the U.S. actually is establishing a military presence at an air base in Damascus, which is unprecedented. Another guest due at the White House in the coming days is Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. President Trump has been talking up the chances of Saudi Arabia agreeing to normalize ties with

Israel and sign on to the 2020 Abraham Accords. But it's unlikely to happen during the Prince of Israel. upcoming visit. Riyadh has signaled to Washington that its position has not changed. They're going to sign up only if they can reach an agreement on a roadmap to Palestinian statehood. That's according to two Gulf sources.

A Reuters exclusive for you. FBI director Kash Patel was in China last week to discuss fentanyl and law enforcement issues. That's according to two people familiar with his trip. He flew into Beijing and stayed for about a day for talks with Chinese officials. His visit follows a summit between the US and Chinese presidents

and was not officially announced by either Washington or Beijing. To Asia, where Super Typhoon Feng Wang has slammed into the Philippines. Eyewitness video showing massive waves crashing into the coastline and gushing floodwaters on the street. At least two people are dead and one million were evacuated before the typhoon made landfall. It's just one of several storms to hit the country this year and comes after Typhoon Kalmagi left more than 200 dead

in the Philippines last week. Now that Soren Mamdani's been elected mayor of New York City, Mannier eyeing his ambitious promises to the city. And as our reporter Matt Tracy has been reporting, those in the real estate industry are torn on his promises for affordable housing in one of America's most expensive cities. The mixed bag, so to speak, the head of the New York Apartments Association,

was very adamantly against Mamdani's policy when it comes to the affordable housing rent-free. He cited rising costs and said that there's no one. practically speaking that we can freeze rents. We have to keep raising rents incrementally to keep up with these rising costs. We're seeing inflation top of mind. While on the other hand, we had conversations with many proponents who also represent or are the developers in the nonprofit space for affordable housing, they were all for it. They said, hey, we can make this work. We said to sit down the table and talk about maybe other ways that Mom Doni can implement this in a practical way

other than keeping those rents down. Matt says how Mamdani will address affordability is still unclear. Mom Dani himself has no direct power, so to speak, to implement this affordable housing, rent freeze. That specifically is what the Rent Guidelines Board does have a direct power over rather than Mom Dani. It's a nine-member board, and you need the majority vote to get those rent freezes in place. But the majority of people on that board are not going to be up for reappointment.

And for today's recommended read, after a week's long journey from a glacier in the Andes to Brazil's tropical coast, a boat carrying dozens of indigenous leaders has arrived and with them their wish list as the COP30 Climate Summit kicks off. There's a link to that story in the pod description. For more on any of the stories from today, check out Reuters.com or the Reuters app. Don't forget to follow us on your favorite podcast player. If you're listening on a smart speaker, just ask for you. the latest news from Reuters, seven days a week. We'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show.