Reuters World News - Trump’s oil push, ICE shooting and Iran's protests

Episode Date: January 10, 2026

President Donald Trump urges U.S. oil giants to pour $100 billion into Venezuela’s energy sector. Protests expected across the U.S. over fatal shooting of Renee Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis. Swiss prosecutors detain the co‑owner of a ski resort bar where a New Year’s Eve fire killed 40 people. Plus, soaring gold prices spark a gold rush for a new generation of fortune hunters in Australia.  Listen to the latest On Assignment on Trump and Venezuela. Find our Morning Bid podcast ⁠⁠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 Sharon Reisch Garson in New Jersey. It's Saturday, January 10th. Today, Trump urges U.S. oil giants to pump $100 billion into Venezuela's energy sector. Protesters hit the streets across the U.S. this weekend after a fatal ice shooting in Minneapolis. And the owner of a Swiss ski bar where a deadly New Year's Eve fire killed 40 people is detained. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes, seven days a week. President Donald Trump is making a bold pitch to America's oil giants. At White House meeting Friday, he's urged Exxon, Chevron, and Conoco Phillips to pour $100 billion into Venezuela, promising them a chance to rebuild the country's energy infrastructure and pump more crude than ever before. Trump says the U.S. will guarantee security for companies that commit to investing,

and a singled out Chevron, praising it for staying in Venezuela when others pulled out. A lot of people left, a lot of big companies left, some of the people, many of the people sitting at this table left because of the safety risk and other risks. But you really, you stuck it out. I give you credit for that. But they're skepticism. Exxon Mobil CEO, Darren Woods, calls Venezuela, quote, uninvestable and says legal changes are needed before the company would consider returning. We haven't been in the country for almost 20 years. We think it's absolutely critical in the short term that we get a technical team in place to assess the current state of the industry and the

assets to understand what would be involved. The U.S. military's high-stakes extraction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was a show of air dominance. The operation featured stealth fighters, bombers, and electronic warfare jets, alongside drones and satellites, feeding real-time intelligence. Our defense industry reporter Mike Stone is here to break it down and look at one of the biggest takeaways of the mission for other militaries around the world. It starts off in space with satellites looking at where all the radars and Venezuelan anti-air equipment is. Then you have EA 18G growlers, which is a Boeing-made aircraft carrier launched jet that would go and blind those with, you know, super powerful electronic, basically microwaves directed at it. There was a discussion by the president of turning off the power grid.

Now, that's a offensive cyber capability. We don't know what it is. But those things exist every single time. The United States has an operation like this. Every single military studies it within an inch of its life for years. They've been given a whole other set of radar data that they have, how their radars were blinded, how the electrical infrastructure in Venezuela was neutralized.

All those things you're going to be forensically gone through by both, the United States industry, the United States and the United States intelligence community, and adversaries around the world, for example, China and Russia. So there's a bit of, you know, you show what your cards are. The United States has shown what, you know,

a leader capture raid would look like in, you know, 2026. That's what's been flagged to everyone, and everyone is going to begin to prepare to combat that. And for more on Venezuela, check out the latest episode of Reuters on assignment, hosted by Jonah Green, where our reporters break down the geopolitical stakes of Maduro's capture.

So I think from a tactical standpoint, most officials think this was a huge success. I think it's strategic questions that are now being raised about what the future is. The government is not very different at all. Maduro's cabinet endures. It's all the same people. It's not quite clear what the Trump administration wants

for the transition going forward. We'll drop a link in the pod description. Protesters flooded downtown Minneapolis Friday night following the fatal shooting of Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, killed Wednesday by an immigration agent while monitoring an ice operation. Demonstrations are expected nationwide this weekend,

with civil liberties groups calling for more than a thousand rallies, demanding an end to President Trump's large-scale ice deployments. Anti-government protests are spreading across Iran, and the U.S. is watching closely. Secretary of State Marco Rubio voiced support for demonstrators on X after authorities cut Internet access. And President Trump has warned Iran's leaders, saying, quote, you better not start shooting because we'll start shooting, too. Our foreign policy editor, Don Durfey, is following the U.S. response. So the U.S. has a couple of issues that they worry about when it comes to Iran. One is the nuclear program, which the joint Israel U.S. strikes months ago had sought to address.

That nuclear program is not completely dead, and yet negotiations over it haven't really moved ahead. The other issue, of course, has been Iran's support for proxy groups, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis in Yemen, Those groups have been a major irritant for Washington and for Israel. They are far weaker now than they were. They no longer serve as sort of the protection blanket for Iran that they had previously. So I think as Washington watches the protests, one of the things that they would be looking for is a sign that the regime is seriously weakened by the protests because they don't have the proxy groups to rely on like they used to.

Iran's army issued a statement vowing to safeguard strategic infrastructure and public property. Swiss prosecutors are detaining one of the owners of a ski resort bar where a New Year's Eve fire killed 40 people, citing flight risk. Jacques Moretticoe owns the Constellation in Cranz, Montana. He and his wife, Jessica, entered a prosecutor's office together on Friday for a hearing. Hours later, she left alone. Prosecutors say sparkling candles ignited foam soundproofing, and the bar had missed multiple safety checks. Italian Prime Minister Georgia Maloney is calling for stern punishment, saying the tragedy was the result of too many people not doing their job or thinking they were making easy money. Among the dead, 21 Swiss citizens, seven French and six Italian.

In times of geopolitical tensions, gold has been considered a traditional safe haven, and it certainly got the gold hunters out in Australia. In the hinterlands of Australia's Victoria estate, Kelly Smith works her way through the bush with a metal detector, hunting for gold. Oh, there it is. Closer inspection reveals it's just a shotgun pellet, but she's not giving up. I like to walk through the bush, saying the wildlife, and if I'm lucky, finding a little bit of gold. Kelly's part of a growing wave of gold hunters, making their way to Australia's, so-called golden triangle. Reporter Melanie Burton traveled to the area where due to soaring gold prices,

solo hunters and gold hunting tours are on the rise. So we went on two tours in two different parts of the Golden Triangle, which are really a series of little tiny gold rush towns. So they're pretty old by Australian standards, a couple hundred years maybe. So mostly it's red, pebbly dirt, gum trees, a bit dry this time of year. So you would see about maybe eight to ten people with their metal detectors out, walking slowly, pushing their metal detectors over the little ferns or the little bushes into the scrub land. So, yeah, we learnt little tips like, look at the shape of the land, is it undulating,

go to the bottom of the slope, that might be a tip to ink. increase your odds of finding gold. Miners' rights permits are cheap at about $20, and demand is at an all-time high. Melanie says there's camaraderie among gold hunters to a point. But the whole thing with looking for gold is that no one wants to tell you where their gold place is, because historically, what happens with new iterations of metal detectors is that the technology gets so much better that you can take you.

to places where prick gold has previously been found. And because the tech is so much better, you can find more gold. 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. And if you're listening on a smart speaker, just ask for the latest news from Reuters seven days a week. We'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show.