Reuters World News - Trump charged, Congo's gorilla hunters return and an intimate portrait of egg-freezing in Taiwan

Episode Date: August 2, 2023

Donald Trump faces federal charges over his efforts to reverse the 2020 election. Rating agency Fitch downgrades the U.S. government's top credit rating. A potential visa waiver deal between Israel and the U.S. has officials inspecting some Palestinian border crossings. Plus an intimate portrait of what it's like to get your eggs frozen in Taiwan and the first Hollywood strike talks in three months.  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, Donald Trump is charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States. A potential visa waiver deal between Israel and the US has officials quietly inspecting some Palestinian border crossings. Exiled hunter-gatherers seek to reclaim land in Congo's guerrilla refuge. And an intimate portrait of what it's like to get your eggs frozen in Taiwan as a debate bruise over easing government restrictions. This is Reuters World News, with everything you need to know from the front line. lines in 10 minutes every weekday. I'm Tara Oaks. And I'm Kim Vinal in London. Donald Trump has been criminally charged for the third time in four months, special counsel Jack Smith and prosecutors laying out their case against the former president of his efforts to reverse the results of the 2020

election. Today, an indictment was unsealed, charging Donald J. Trump with conspiring to defraud the United States, conspiring to disenfranchise voters, and conspiring and attempting to obstruct an official proceeding. The sweeping indictment describes in detail how Trump pushed fraud claims he knew to be untrue, pressured state officials, and finally incited an assault on the U.S. Capitol. It's described in the indictment. It was fueled by lies. Lies by the defendant targeted at obstructing a bedrock function of the U.S. government, the nation's process of collecting. counting and certifying the results of the presidential election. Trump was ordered to make an initial appearance in federal court in Washington on Thursday.

In a statement, the Trump campaign said he had always followed the law. Joseph Axe is covering the story. Joey, what are the legal challenges in proving this case against Trump? So Trump and some of his allies have already previewed what is likely to be a big part of his defense, which is essentially that he genuinely believed that the election had been fraudulent, and he was simply trying to ensure that the right person remained in the White House. And so one of the things that the indictment does is it really has a lot of detail trying to forestall that argument. There are lots of mentions in the indictment about instances where senior advisors to Trump,

including intelligence officials, told him unequivocally that there were no major fraudulent issues with the election. And so all of that is the prosecutors trying to get ahead of that argument by saying, listen, there's no possible way that Trump actually believed that the election was fraudulent. He knew all too well that what he was saying was untrue. Now to the top-breaking news stories from around the world. An attack on Ukraine's grain ports has left a grain silo damaged in the Odessa region. Global food prices have soared as Moscow ramps up its use of force to reimpose a blockade of Ukrainian exports. In Kiev, air defence said they shot down multiple drones, but their debris damaged several buildings. China has dispatched thousands of rescue workers to the flooded city of Zhao Zhao, as the remnants of typhoon Doxuri continue to wreak havoc.

The city borders Beijing, which was inundated with the most rainfall in 140 years in recent days, according to official data. Authorities in Harbe have declared a state of emergency, after at least 20 were killed and tens of thousands evacuated. The first military planes evacuating mostly European nationals from Niger have landed in Paris and Rome. Other countries are expected to fly their citizens out of the West African country soon after last week's coup, the seventh military takeover in less than three years in West and Central Africa.

Hollywood striking writers and major studios have agreed to hold talks on Friday. It's the first meeting since her strike began over higher pay demands in May. Grammy-winning singer Lizzo is being sued for allegedly creating a hostile work environment. Three of her former dancers have accused the star of weight-shaming and sexually denigrating behaviour. A representative for Lizzo did not respond to a request for comment. Now to markets, ahead of the open in New York, investors are still digesting the surprise announcement by Fitch that it had downgraved the US long-term rating. Fitch lowered the US long-term foreign currency issuer default rating to AA plus from AAA.

It cited fiscal deterioration over the next three years. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen led the charge of U.S. officials to accuse Fitch of a flawed methodology and ignoring a resilient economy. US observers are in Israel this week monitoring the country's border. It's part of a trial period over a possible visa waiver. deal between the two countries. In return for visa-free access into the US for Israelis, Washington has demanded that Israel provide unfettered passage for Americans, and that includes Palestinian-Americans. Dan Williams has the story. Dan, how does this deal work exactly? What we have now is essentially the last obstacle that Israel has to cross in order to enter the US visa waiver program.

And in doing so, it's essentially overhauling the travel. rules for tens of thousands of Palestinian Americans who live in the West Bank, as well as potentially those from the United States, given that some US-based Palestinian Americans have in the past complained of excessive scrutiny, selective security searches by Israeli border Iraq officials, and even in some cases outright exclusion on the basis of perceived or actual political activism. You spoke to some Palestinian Americans who've crossed a border since the US began its trial, What's been the immediate effect? Indeed, we've had several accounts of travellers, some of them clearly surprised,

coming through really in mere minutes, coming through border crossing, say, at Israel's Ben-Gurian airport that were previously inaccessible to them. So for now, it would appear to be going smoothly. Deep in the forests of eastern Congo, a troop of rare guerrillas eat peacefully, knowing they're protected in the Cahuzi-Biega National Park. But on the edge of this land live an estimated 10,000 indigenous Batwa people. They were evicted from the forests when the park was created in 1970. Now they say they are the ones endangered.

Villager In Samire in Khafu is one of those that fears dying from hunger, childbirth or disease without legal access to their traditional forest-based livelihoods. The exiled community says they were promised access to alternative care and food, but those promises have been broken. If that continues, they say they'll have to return to their land without permission. Village chief, Jean-Marie Kassula, says the state confiscated the land without giving them another place to live. Security has been tightened in the park as the result of the dispute.

The but-war says its threats will remain, as long as the government fails to allocate funds and land in line with its previous promises. Taiwan's fertility rates have dwindled to well below one birth per woman. At the same time, the number of women freezing their eggs has surged, especially those in their 30s. Yet the law prevents single women and same-sex partners from using those eggs when it comes to make a baby. 33-year-old marketing director Vivian Tong is banking on the law.

changing. Saying she hopes freezing her eggs now means she can work on her career and have options in the future. Photographer Anne Wang intimately documented Tung's journey to what she hopes one day will be motherhood. Anne, these photos are so personal. You had access to her hospital bed while the eggs were retrieved, photographed her injecting herself with hormones. Tell us about Vivian. She is quite well educated. She has an MBA and all. And she clearly cares about her career a lot. I mean, I followed her for two weeks, right? And seriously, like, she just works so much and she clearly loves her work and she's passionate about it. And it's clear that right now at this age or at this phase of her life, she wants to focus on career

more than building a family or starting a serious relationship or starting a family. And how typical is her story these days? Honestly, I think it's quite common because I'm also in my mid-30s and actually I started pitched a story or I wanted to do this story because I froze my egg beginning of this year. It's good that women have the opportunity to choose between career and starting a family and choose when they want to start a family. But in Taiwan, there's still this traditional or there's still law here that you're not completely free and you're not completely, you cannot make a lot. your own decision, when and where, how you want to have a family or sort of family. How likely does it seem that the rules will be changed anytime soon? We talked to two doctors, and they've both been doing this for quite a while,

and they both think it will change and it's got to change. That's it for today's episode of Reuters World News. We'll be back tomorrow with our daily show. To make sure you know what's going on in the world, listen in him for 10 minutes every weekday. and don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast player or download the Reuters app.