Reuters World News - Spain’s fugitive kingmaker, a striking Israel reservist and Musk’s risky X factor

Episode Date: July 25, 2023

“Major E” served in Israel’s army for 13 years – but today he’s one of the reservists on strike to protest the judicial reforms ripping the country apart. A fugitive separatist leader could determine whether or not Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez holds on to power. Plus, the risks for Elon Musk’s ‘X’ and inside the delicate negotiations over the missing US soldier. *This podcast was corrected. An earlier version incorrectly referred to the Junts party as the organizers of the banned Catalonia independence referendum in 2017. It was organized by PDeCAT, another pro-independence party at the time led by Carles Puigdemont. 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, Israel divided after Netanyahu pushes through his judicial reform. We speak to an army reservist, one of thousands, vowing to keep up the protest. A fugitive separatist leader holds the key to unlocking Spain's political impasse. And does X really mark the spot for Elon Musk? It's Tuesday, July 25th. This is Reuters World News, with everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes. every weekday. I'm Kim Vinal.

And I'm Tara Oaks in London. We start with the headlines making news around the world. Russia has for the first time destroyed Ukrainian grain warehouses on the Danube River, escalating its attacks on Kiev's export routes after quitting a wartime grain deal. Global wheat and corn futures rose sharply on fears that Russian attacks and more fighting could threaten grain exports and shipping. The US Virgin Islands has unveiled new accusations in its suit against J.P. Morgan Chase,

alleging the bank ignored red flags about Jeffrey Epstein's sexual abuse of young women and girls. A New Manhattan federal court filing quotes a 2012 email from a bank executive referring to Epstein surrounding himself with, quote, nymphets. J.P. Morgan countered with its own accusation, that the US Virgin Islands gave visas that allowed Epstein to bring victims in. The personal chef of former President Barack Obama has drowned near the family's home on Martha's Vineyard.

Tafari Campbell's body was recovered on Monday after a two-day search. He was seen struggling in the water while paddleboarding. UPS and the Teamsters Union are meeting today to try to avert a strike that could knock the US economy. The Union is pushing for better wages for part-time employees who account for about half of UPS workers. If agreement isn't reached, UPS workers could walk off a job on August 1st. It's time for markets now with Carmel Crimmons and Carmel. We're talking about Sam Altman, the head of ChatGPT, OpenAI,

launching his own cryptocurrency project. Tell us about it. That's right. So it's called WorldCoin. And what it does is it gives people digital coins in exchange for a scan of their eyeballs. So around the world, we've had thousands of people. queuing up to have their irises scanned by these like silver orbs. They're kind of like the size of bowling balls. The idea is that that generates a unique digital identity so that you can

distinguish people from machines. In kind of world coin speak, you have a proof of personhood. It's available in 20 countries, but the world coin tokens aren't going to be initially available in the US. Regulators there are cracking down on digital assets. A new dawn in Israel today. After the parliament passed the first bill of a judicial overhaul, sought by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Anger on the floor of the Knesset by opponents immediately after the vote spread into the streets with thousands blocking roads and scuffling with police overnight. An animosity between the government's critics and supporters,

a sign of the divisions tearing the country apart. As Israel's far right celebrates the critical victory by Netanyahu, opponents have vowed to dig in. The head of the Histadur Labor Federation threatened a general strike. Protesters include Israel's military reservists. Among them is Major E. He served 13 years in the army, including three years of compulsory service. Today, as he's done for the past few months, Major E will strike.

Major E, you're part of a group usually willing to pay the ultimate price. for Israel. Are you questioning that now? Certainly. Special operation personnel sometimes wake up in the morning in Tel Aviv or in Jerusalem and then are being sent beyond any lines a few hours later and then return back and go to sleep again in Israel. When they see how decisions are being taken in the last few months and certainly the last few days, they start to question whether they should indeed pay this ultimate price and take the risk of being sent beyond ending in lines. How do you see the future of Israel now? How do you feel about it? I'm very troubled and very concerned. I must say, I wasn't concerned to that level ever.

But when we are being led by a bunch of people who don't seem to care very much about the general purposes of the Israeli public and only are being motivated by personal gain or by very short-term achievements that will cause certainly very high damages to the state of Israel, then I'm certainly troubled about the future. It's a political plot twist you couldn't make up. In Spain, a fugitive separatist leader, has emerged as Kingmaker after Sunday's election. Carlos Preetemont and his Junts Party could determine whether or not socialist Prime Minister

Pedro Sanchez holds on to power. Ashlyn Lang is our Iberia Bureau Chief. Ashlyn, the Catalan pro-independence party have offered conditional support for the socialists. What position would that put Prime Minister Sanchez in? Between a rock and a hard place, really, one of the negative points for the socialist during their campaign and one that the Conservatives,

made much of was the fact that in the past they have formed what the conservatives called Frankenstein coalitions with lots of smaller parties, including separatists. Now, the socialists look like they may need the separatists to either actively support the more abstain and a vote against them to be able to form a new government. However, those separatists who are eager to please their bases that want independence for their states will be pushing hard for there to be potentially a new referendum for their independence. And tell us about Priegement. When there was the decision to have a referendum on independence,

that was something that was blocked by Madrid, but run anyway by the regional government. Madrid clamped down. Mouge de Mont is the leader when that happened. He was threatened with arrest. Many of the independence leaders were jailed, and he fled to Europe. He's currently in Brussels,

facing an arrest warrant. and so he now is in this strange position where he can't return to his country and yet the government is actively courting him to help them form a government. Private Travis King has now been in North Korea for one week after sprinting across the demilitarized zone from South Korea. Why he crossed, his exact location and condition, are still a mystery. Our US foreign policy editor, Don Dherfi, is here to walk us through the challenges of negotiating his.

release. Don, what do we know about communications with North Korea over King? Well, so far, the United States says that they've reached out to North Korea many times, but really North Korea's not responded at all. Why is it so hard to negotiate with Pyongyang? Relations with North Korea are terrible. North Korea is under heavy sanctions over its nuclear weapons program and has been testing ballistic missiles. In past cases where the U.S. managed to get citizens, out of the country, very often there was a little bit of leverage that they had.

So, for example, during the Trump administration, they managed to get a group of three U.S. citizens out of the country. But that was before President Trump had his summit with Kim Jong-un, which is something North Koreans really wanted very badly. Right now, there's just nothing like that. Twitter's rebranding as X is an attempt by Elon Musk to take the platform from tweets to a, quote, super app. But the move comes with plenty of risk.

Tech reporter Sheila Dang is here to help us understand this move away from the bird. Sheila, what is Elon Musk up to here? So Musk wants to make Twitter into what he calls an everything app, which would be somewhat similar to WeChat in China. The app could offer peer-to-peer payments, a way to send people money, maybe even a way to hail a cab, The possibilities in Musk's mind are endless, but it's clear that he wants to really broaden Twitter beyond social media.

So what would that mean for making money? Twitter up until now has made most of its money through advertising. But ever since Musk took over the platform, advertising revenue has struggled a lot. By offering different services, we can imagine that X might be able to take fees or cut of the payments that creators make on the platform or different types of ad revenue that might come from video or audio. Mussel's hope is that X will be able to earn money in a variety of different ways beyond just digital advertising. That's it for today's episode of Royter's World News. To make sure you know what's going on in the world, listen in every weekday.

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