Reuters World News - Trump in court, Lebanon’s power vacuum and UAE sex trafficking

Episode Date: June 13, 2023

Former President Donald Trump is headed to federal court in Miami, with thousands of supporters expected to protest. Why Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah movement are set to reject a senior IMF official as president. Plus, how deception and inaction underpin the UAE’s thriving sex trafficking industry. 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 heads to federal court in Miami with resounding support from Republican voters. Russia launches a large missile attack on President Zelensky's hometown. We look at the leadership vacuum in Lebanon and the violence and apathy that fuel sex trafficking in the UAE. It's Tuesday, June 13th. This is Reuters World News, with everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes every weekday. I'm Christopher Walgesper in Chicago. And I'm Carmel Crimmons in Dublin. We start in Miami.

Make no mistake about it. We're taking this event extremely serious. We know that there is a potential of things taking a turn for the worst, but that's not the Miami way, right? City police chief, Mani Morales, preparing for possible protests and as many as 50,000 people ahead of Donald Trump's court appearance. The Republican frontrunner for the White House is accused of unlawfully, keeping classified documents and lying to officials who try to recover them. Trump says the case is a political witch hunt. And a Reuters Ipsos poll shows the vast majority of Republicans believe him.

Andy Sullivan in D.C. explains. Americans seem to have already made up their minds about Donald Trump and priced in any behavior accordingly. He still holds a wide lead in the contest for the Republican presidential nomination. And we're seeing that roughly half of Americans view these charges as political. motivated, even as a majority think that the behavior in question is plausible. This is similar to what we saw back in March. If you recall, he was charged with falsifying payments to a porn star.

A lot of people back then also said, yeah, they saw this as plausible, but roughly half said that they view the case itself as politically motivated. Among Republicans, there's been a very large rally around the flag effect. Trump's approval among Republicans has gone up since these cases have been filed, and 81% 1% of Republicans in this new poll view these charges as politically motivated. And now for the other stories making headlines around the world. Russia's launched a series of missile strikes on the central Ukrainian city of Krivi-Ri, killing at least three people.

Rescue operations are underway in a burning five-story apartment building and a destroyed warehouse. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association is shutting down after it sold the Golden Globe, awards to a new owner. Eldridge Industries, along with Dick Clark Productions, will run a reshaped event in January. The Foreign Press Association has had a troubled few years after facing controversy over ethical lapses and a lack of diversity. Twenty-two U.S. service members have been injured in what's been described as a helicopter mishap in northeast Syria. Officials say the incident happened on Sunday, without disclosing the cause or giving any details on the severity of the injuries. Fans have partied all night on the streets of Denver after the Nuggets clinched their

first ever NBA title. They beat the Miami Heat 9489 to take the best of seven series 4 to 1. It ends the Nuggets 47 year wait for a championship title. European shares are up on hopes the Fed will pause interest rate hikes this week. That follows a sizzling close on Wall Street. Apple shares hit a record high, really underscoring how big tech is back. Will the mood last? We'll find out tomorrow. In the meantime, China surprise markets by cutting a short-term interest rate. It's a sign that officials are concerned about faltering growth in the world's second biggest economy.

A polarizing political showman with a raft of legal woes. A property mogul who's used his media savvy to get into politics. No, it's not Donald Trump, but late Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi. His death this week marks the end of an era in Italian politics. Alvici Armalini in Milan explains. Belisconi's death is clearly a hugely important moment for Italy and for Italians, because he was a deeply divisive figure. There's a big problem of succession, both politically and economically.

So neither his party, for Zitalia nor his business, media for Europe, have a clear succession plan. On the politics side, the most likely scenario is that his party will somehow wither away and its MPs will likely join other parties, but I think most of them will stay within the government camp. For the business side, instead, it's interesting that shares in MFE jumped by as much as 10% because traders are speculating that his death will hasten the possibilities of a merger or a sale of the family business. To Lebanon, an estate of political paralysis, now in its eighth month,

Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah armed movement is set to torpedo in attempt to elect a senior IMF official as president this week. It's the 12th time lawmakers have tried to find a successor to Michelle Aoun. Maya Gabali and Beirut explains the cause of the standoff and what it means for the country. Maya, why are Hezbollah blocking Jihad Azur's bid for president?

Jihad Azur was finance minister in a Lebanese government formed after Hezbollah's ally, the Syrian government, with Jewish troops from Lebanon in 2005. And that government tried to take a series of decisions that were seen at the time as trying to curb Hezbollah's influence. And what that prompted was a major show of force from Hezbollah and clashes that resulted in the worst violence that Lebanon had seen since the end of its civil war in 1990.

And so for Hezbollah right now, nominating Jihad as old for president is reminding them of that period and is making them deeply concerned that they're going to be facing some of those similar measures to try to curb their power. And what are the dangers of this kind of standoff? The violence of 2008 is very much still in the minds of many Lebanese. It was quite a terrifying time for many who were living in Beirut and other parts of Lebanon. So for many people, you know, without even having to say explicitly, there is this concern that that kind of a violence can be repeated. That's in the worst case scenario. And otherwise, standoff, if it stays even just political. It means that we've got more stalling on much-needed financial reforms, more government

paralysis that means that really crucial decisions that would help Lebanon get out of this nearly four-year economic crisis. Those decisions would continue to be stalled. So, Maya, what do people think is needed for a breakthrough? Well, again, looking back at 2008, what happened to resolve the crisis in 2008 was a foreign power coming in and playing a mediating role in Lebanon. Many people think that that's exactly what it's going to take this time as well, that some of the foreign players with a lot of influence in Lebanon, including the United States, France, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, again, could come in and ramp up their contacts to be able to reach a consensus across different party lines that Lebanon can finally get the president that it needs.

And now to the United Arab Emirates, where sex trafficking is all too common. African women are often lured to the Gulf state under false pretences. violence and government inaction traps them there, according to anti-trafficking officials and activists. Maggie Michelle in Cairo uncovered this horrifying story of sexual slavery in a reporting collaboration between the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and Reuters. She interviewed 25 African women, mostly from Nigeria, for this story. Maggie, tell me about some of the women you met. The woman I met in Nigeria, I met our Emirates, are mostly learning.

into the life of Dubai and the good work and good money by recruiters. And once they land in the U.E, they are shocked with a new reality that there's no job at all, and it's all about prostitution. So every day they go out to restaurants, to hotels, to bars, selling their bodies, and coming back after a very long night to the trafficker and they drop all the money they have and they get nothing, even money to eat. This seems counterintuitive, right? The United Arab Emirates has fairly strict morality laws.

How is sex trafficking so prevalent there? The United Arab Emirates is a very small minority of nationals who are Muslim, and despite the fact that the country has Sharia law as its main source of legislation. In reality, I have seen personally police cars in the middle of these neighbors. where you see the women who are forced into prostitution without interrupting them. So it's happening in the open without any kind of crackdown by the authorities. The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs told Reuters that any suggestion that the UAE tolerates human trafficking or that it has little regard to the victims of this heinous crime is

utterly false. Such allegations, the ministry said, were baseless and without foundation. The Nigerian government did not respond to a request for comment. 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, remember to subscribe on your favorite podcast player or download the Reuters app.