Reuters World News - The hunt for the Titanic tourist sub and succession in the West Bank

Episode Date: June 20, 2023

Ships and planes are combing the North Atlantic in search of a tourist submersible that went missing on a dive to the Titanic. The city of Jenin in the occupied West Bank has become a hotbed of Palestinian resistance and a headache for any future successor to President Mahmoud Abbas. Plus, the sexual harassment scandal roiling Indian wrestling and its Olympic hopes. 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 search for the tourist submersible that vanished on route to the Titanic, the succession challenge facing the Palestinian leadership, and the sexual harassment scandal roiling Indian wrestling, and its Olympic hopes. It's Tuesday, June 20th. This is Reuters World News, with everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes every weekday. I'm Kim Vinal in London.

Search and rescue teams are racing to find a tourist submersible that went missing during a dive to see the Titanic. The location of the search is approximately 900 miles east of Cape Cod in a water depth of roughly 13,000 feet. US Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Morga explaining the rescue mission. The Titan has five people on board and enough oxygen for 96 hours.

We're using that time, making the best use of every moment of that time to locate the vessel. A Canadian research ship, the MV Polar Prince, lost contact with the submersible on Sunday morning after it began its descent. Now for the rest of the headlines

making news around the world. Sirens blaring for hours across much of Ukraine as Russia launched widespread air attacks overnight. Ukraine's army says its air defense system shot down 28 of the 30 Iranian-made drones. A judge has warned former President Donald Trump's lawyers not to release any evidence in the classified documents case to the media or public. Trump is accused of illegally keeping top secret documents after leaving the White House and then conspiring to obstruct a federal investigation about it.

He's pleaded not guilty. The scale and speed of Sudan's descent into death and destruction is unprecedented. Without strong international support, Sudan could quickly become a locus of lawlessness radiating insecurity across the region. UN chief Antonio Gutierrez issuing a plea on behalf of Sudan. International donors have pledged $1.5 billion in aid, but according to the UN, that's only half. half of what is needed. The fighting between Sudan's army and the paramilitary rapid support forces

has killed more than 3,000 people and forced more than 2 million people to flee their homes. It's time now for markets with Carmel Krimmins and Carmel some disappointment in China. That's right, the country's central bank cut its lending benchmarks by 10 basis points, but investors were looking for a bigger cut, so property stocks are taking a bit of a hit and the yuan is under pressure. And tell us about what's happening at Alibaba. Right, there's been a surprise boardroom shake up there. So the veteran CEO and chairman, Daniel Zhang, is stepping down to focus on the e-commerce group's cloud business. Now, his departure comes after Alibaba has been losing market share and it's been struggling to revive growth in the post-COVID era.

So he's going to be replaced by two co-founders of the company, Joseph Tsai and Eddie Wu. Funerals in the West Bank after a deadly raid by Israeli. commandos killed five Palestinians and wounded dozens. What started as a routine arrest operation in the city of Janine descended into an hours-long battle. The clashes so intense, the Israelis deployed a helicopter gunship to help get their troops out. Armed militant groups, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad,

have a strong and growing presence in the refugee camp close to Janine. And that's a problem for the Palestinian Authority and any future successor to its 87-year-old leader, Mahmoud Abbas. Here's James McKenzie in Jerusalem. You've got these large groups of armed militants who don't feel any loyalty to the Palestinian Authority. The two big sort of centres of the resistance over the past year have been Janine and Nablus,

where the Palestinian Authority has virtually no ability to exercise its writ. It shines a light, I think, on some of the issues which are going to confront the Palestinian Authority when the time comes to replace Mahmur Abbas as president. James, are there any candidates to replace Abbas? The sort of name that everyone talks about is a man named Hussein al-Sheikh,

who's a senior official in the Palestinian Authority, who's a very close ally of Mahmur Abbas. The problem is he has abysmally low popularity ratings. Then there are other more unusual candidates. There's one that often come, crops up, who's a man named Marwan Baraguti, who's sort of one of the leaders of the old Intifada of 20 years ago, who's observing multiple life sentences for murder and other offenses. So in one sense, he's be difficult to imagine him being president because he's in jail. But on the other hand, he does enjoy very, very wide popularity with Palestinians because he's seen as a great

symbol of the resistance. Isn't Hamas the Palestinian authorities rival positioning itself for succession in the West Bank? I think it's unlikely that they would be in a position to take over the Palestinian presidency. But certainly, I think they would expect to expand their freedom of manoeuvre and their sort of general operational presence in the West Bank and, you know, use that to build their claim to be the representative organization for the Palestinian people. War is raging in Ukraine. But politicians and financiers are meeting in London later this week to discuss funding the country's reconstruction. The World Bank estimates a total rebuild will cost $441 billion.

Horalina Dorosario in London explains why these talks are happening now. Well, Ukraine President Zelensky said it really clearly. They want to rebuild everything, restore everything, and I don't want to stop and think about when the war is going to end to do so. Of course, we're talking about a long-term plan, a road month for the years ahead.

One of the sideline conversations during this meeting is going to be the possible or potential use of Russian assets. How can that also be done if it can be done for the reconstruction plan? So there are a lot of things on the table. I don't remember any sports protest being so big. A sexual harassment scandal is roiling the world of female wrestling in India. The controversy came to a head last week, when the chief of the country's wrestling federation

was charged with sexual harassment and criminal intimidation. Bridge Bouchan Shahran Singh, who's also a prominent member of parliament, rejects the allegations against him. The charges come after months of protest from the country's top wrestlers, some of them Olympic and Asian Games medallists, demanding Bouchan be held accountable.

Vinhish Pogas. a two-time Olympian, who is accused Singh of sexually abusing her, said she felt the sport was no longer safe for young girls. Amlan Chakraborti has been covering the story from New Delhi. Tell us why female wrestling is so important in India. Wrestling has traditionally been popular in northern Indian states like Haryana and Punjab. But it was still considered a men-only sport. So what happened is after the 2010 communal games,

which Gita Fogart, a female wrestler, she won a gold medal. I mean, it sort of triggered a revolution. Even the parents, they were encouraged to send their daughters to these training centers, to learn wrestling and to actually come out and train, even under male coaches, actually. It's a very conservative society in Haryana. It's not very easy for women athletes to train outdoor or practice outdoor. I remember, I mean, I had interviewed one cricketer who is now part of the Indian team. She's also from Haryana. She had to cut it. her hair short and disguised herself as a boy to be able to train. So you can well imagine the kind of social pressure there is in Haryana on these athletes.

Haryana is known as a hub for Olympic athletes. How does this affect India's future Olympic chances? Haryana sent nearly 25% of the athletes, Indian athletes, who took part in Tokyo Olympics. And there are a significant number of women were part of the contingent. So this incident, and many coaches tell me that it's a blow, actually, to Haryana's hope of becoming even stronger in Olympic sport. But they just hope it's a temporary phase. And once these anti-sexual harassment policies are in place and it's considered a safe place, probably only then parents will send their doctors. I mean, this incident, this protest shown light on the fact that most of India's sports federation,

they do not have the mechanism to cope with cases like allegation of sexual harassment. So many feel that regardless of outcome of the legal process against the wrestling official, the protest is already a success in the same that it's bringing in reforms and overall it's making Indian sports a lot more safer place for women pursue their dream. That's it for this edition of Reuters World News. We'll be back tomorrow. To make sure you know what's going on in the world, don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast player or download the Reuters app.