Reuters World News - UN agency accusations, China fentanyl talks and Russian doping

Episode Date: January 30, 2024

The future of the UN agency for Palestinians is in doubt after an Israeli intelligence dossier alleged some staff took part in abductions and killings during the October 7 raid. US and Chinese officials meet to try and stop the flow of fentanyl. The teenage Russian ice skater banned for doping. Plus, Elon Musk’s Neuralink implants first brain chip in a human and Hong Kong’s leader seeks new security laws. 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 UN agency for Palestinians warns it will run out of money as scores of its employees are accused of doubling as militants. Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan is sentenced to 10 years in prison, days before the country's general election. Chinese and US officials hold fentanyl talks in Beijing. And the US is in line for Olympic gold after Russian skater Camilla Vallieva is disqualified. It's Tuesday, January 30th.

This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes every weekday. I'm Kim Vinal in Wanganui, New Zealand, and I'm Carmel Crimmons in Dublin. The president and I will not tolerate attack on U.S. forces, and we will take all necessary actions to defend the U.S. and our troops. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin vowing retaliation for the deadly attack on U.S. forces in Jordan. The drone attack by Iran-backed militants has raised questions over US defences in the Middle East. The US failed to stop the enemy drone after it approached the base at the same time as a US drone was returning. While fears of a wider war escalate, starving Palestinians are facing the prospect

of even less aid making it into Gaza. Western nations are halting funding for the UN-Palestinian aid agency known as UNRWA, after allegations some employees took part in the Hamas attack on Israel. In Gaza, news of the pause and funding has been met with dismay. At an UNRWA aid distribution point in Rafah, a city on the border with Egypt swollen by displaced people, men carry heavy sacks of flour as Palestinians stand in line for supplies. Umh Hassan al-Masri is there preparing bread on a makeshift oven. She says that their food, water, medicine, medical treatments all come from UNRWA.

But that aid is now threatened by the charges from an Israeli dossier, seen by Reuters, which alleges that some 190 UNRWA employees, including teachers, have doubled as Hamas or Islamic Jihad men. militants. It includes allegations that some staff took part in abductions and killings during the October 7th raid that sparked the Gaza War. Michelle Nichols is at the UN. Israel's been critical of the agency for a long time. Why is that? Yes, Israel has in the past accused unrua of perpetuating conflict by discouraging resettlement of refugees. On occasion, in the past, they've said that, well, they've accuse some agency staff of taking part in armed attacks. They have also accused Unrua of sort of, I guess, anti-Israel curriculum in some of the school books that are used in Unrua schools.

They were accusing Unruis using books that sort of contain incitement to violence. Unrua denied all those accusations, but yes, these latest allegations sort of come after a long line of criticism by Israel of the agency. What will this cut off and funding mean for Palestinians? So Unrua has said that if they won't be able to continue operations in Gaza or elsewhere across the region beyond the end of February, if funding's not resumed by then. So Unrua isn't delivering all the traditional services that it would. But the key role that it's playing at the moment is helping with the delivery of the aid,

that is making its way into Gaza. So if funding is halted, they won't be able to pay staff in Gaza, it'll be very difficult to distribute for other agencies, to other UN agencies, other NGOs to distribute the aid, the small amount of aid that is getting into Gaza. And this comes at a time when the UN has been warning of potential famine in Gaza, because there is not enough food, to feed everyone. A Pakistan court has handed former Prime Minister Imran Khan a 10-year jail term for leaking state secrets. His party has said they will challenge the decision and called it a sham case. A conviction on corruption charges had already ruled Cannes out of the country's general elections

next week. He has said those charges are politically motivated. The first human patient has received a brain implant from Elon Musk's Neurilink. In a post on X, Musk said the patient was recovering well. Neurrelink aims one day to enable humans to control computers with their minds, helping people overcome paralysis. Hong Kong's leader has started a push for new security laws to build on sweeping legislation Beijing imposed on the city in 2020. John Lee has said Hong Kong's government will attempt to pass the laws as soon as possible.

X has lifted a ban on searches for Taylor Swift following the spread of fake, sexually explicit images of the pop singer on the social media site. Toyota is in the spotlight in markets today. Its chairman Akio Toyota has apologized for a spate of scandals at the world's biggest carmaker. He says he wants to take full responsibility after problems with testing data was uncovered at three affiliates. His comments come as Toyota has urged the owners of 50,000 older US vehicles to stop driving. and get immediate repairs because an airbag inflator could explode and potentially kill them. US and Chinese officials are meeting in Beijing today to try and stop the flow of fentanyl into the US. Washington accuses China of being the main source of chemicals used by drug cartels in Mexico to make fentany.

Anthony Swartkowski is in Beijing. Right. So this meeting is a direct consequence of the sort of the summit that took place in November last year between President Xi Jinping and President Joe Biden. And one of the kind of key outcomes of that summit was an agreement that the United States pushed for very hard to establish some kind of kind of working group to start addressing this problem that the United States faces with the sort of the influx of fentanyl into the country. What's also important to remember is that this is not only important for Biden in the election year, but it's also important for many people in Congress.

Before the summit in November, there was a big congressional delegation here led by Chuck Schumer that also raised this multiple times, including directly with President Xi. What is China said? So China has denied that it's the sort of the main source for, these precursor chemicals and has basically blamed the U.S. said that it's sort of an internal U.S. problem. But what China has also done around the time of the summit in November of last year is it has issued what is called a circular or sort of an order basically trying to crack down on the production of these substances that can be used to make fentanyl and other illegal

drugs. So there's definitely been already some kind of goodwill gestures. Russian figure skater Camilla Valleeva has received a four-year doping ban. It effectively strips the Russian Olympic Committee of its gold medal in the team event at the 2022 Beijing Winter Games. The top court in sports treated Valiava, who was 15 at the time of the offense, as an adult in its proceedings. Gabrielle Taitro Farby is in Geneva. Gabrielle, what exactly has Valiva been found guilty of. Ralejeva has been found guilty of an anti-doping violation that she committed at the Russian National Championships in December 2021. That was a long time ago, but we knew she had taken a ban substance. We knew that she had had a positive test in December 2021, yet she was still cleared to compete at the

Olympic Games, and she did so in Beijing and February 2022. But it's taken almost two years to get to the end of this saga, really, to find her guilty of a violation because what happened was the Russian anti-doping agency said she, yes, there had been a violation, but she was at no fault. So what does this result mean for the sport? This has been really portrayed as a victory for clean sport and for fair sport, but you do have a sense of failed justice nonetheless. You have, for example, the head of the US anti-doping agency, Travis Teigart, who said that the justice has been delayed in such a way that there really can't be justice anymore and that you can't take that moment back

for the athletes who won the silver medal to be on the podium. This is really a factor of great frustration, especially for the American skaters who finished in second, who had the silver medal essentially in this event. That's it for today's episode of Reuters World News. We'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show. To make sure you know what's going on in the world,

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