Reuters World News - UN on Hamas rape charges, Super Tuesday and Haiti’s gangs

Episode Date: March 5, 2024

UN experts say it’s likely that rape and gang rape occurred during the Hamas raids in Israel on October 7. It’s Super Tuesday and voters are deciding on more than Joe Biden’s and Donald Trump’s candidacies for the presidential election. In Haiti a state of emergency has been declared as criminal gangs try to topple the prime minister. And the mystery of a stolen Ferrari is solved ... 30 years later.     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, Super Tuesday sees voters deciding more than just presidential candidates, as Donald Trump is handed a ballot win by the Supreme Court. The UN says gang rape likely occurred during Hamas' attack on Israel. And gangs in Haiti threatened to topple the Prime Minister. It's Tuesday, March 5th. This is Reuters World News, bringing you 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

The UN says it is likely that rape and gang rape did occur during the Hamas raids on Israel. A team looking into the October 7th attacks were led by special envoy for sexual violence and conflict Pramela Patton. And in most of these incidents, victims were first subjected to rape and then killed.

Hamas has repeatedly rejected the accusations. The report also found evidence that some hostages taken to Gaza have been subjected to sexual violence. The UN also received information about sexual violence against Palestinians being held by Israel. Israel said no complaints had been received. Hours before the UN report was released,

Israeli forces raided the Palestinian administrative capital of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. Palestinian sources say it was the biggest raid in years on Ramallah. Several armored vehicles and dozens of soldiers could be seen carrying out what Israel says was a counter-terrorism operation. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that Donald Trump can't be removed from state ballots under the 14th Amendment. The justices unanimously overturning a Colorado top state court's ruling that Trump should be disqualified for his role in the January 6th capital attack.

It's a major victory for Trump who was facing similar moves in other states. The former president won the North Dakota Republican presidential caucus on Monday. Meanwhile, the estate of late Irish singer Sheney O'Connor is asking the former president to, to stop using her music. Trump played the hit Nothing Compares to You at a campaign event in Maryland last month. China is hardening its stance on Taiwan. It dropped a reference to peaceful reunification in a report delivered by Premier Li Chang at the opening of Parliament.

And in the South China Sea, the Philippines is accusing China's Coast Guard of carrying out dangerous maneuvers that resulted in a collision between its Coast Guard and a Chinese vessel. China's Coast Guard said the Philippine vessels illegally entreat. Spotify is cheering a ruling that hits Apple with a $2 billion fine for thwarting competition in Europe. Brussels hit the iPhone maker with the fine for thwarting competition via restrictions in its app store. Apple says it will appeal the ruling and points out that the primary advocate and biggest beneficiary from the decision is Spotify, a company based in Europe. China has set itself an ambitious growth target of about 5% this year, despite some major challenges.

And the country is proving to be a hard sell for some big US consumer brands. Apple's iPhone sales in China fell by nearly 25% in the first six weeks of this year. The overall smartphone market in China is shrinking, and Apple is facing stiff competition from domestic rivals. It's now ranked fourth in that market compared to the number two spot a year ago. Tesla's China sales, meanwhile, fell in February, its outlook for global deliveries and sending its shares skidding over 7% on Monday. It's Super Tuesday and primaries across the country are expected to reinforce Biden and Trump's candidacies for the presidential race. Down ballot, though, it's a tighter race for some Democrats

and Republicans fighting for the nomination of their party in November. I spoke to McKinney Bryce, who covers Congress in Washington, D.C., about what to watch for. McKinney, let's start start with the Alabama 2nd District? So Alabama had to redraw its congressional maps. And the upshot of that is that the second congressional district is considered open. It had had a Republican incumbent. And now about 18 or so Democrats and Republicans are vying for the seat. And it is considered to be a seat that Democrats can win.

And so that can add to their total. In California, there's a couple of high-profile seats open, Kevin McCarthy's House seat, and then Diane Feinstein's seat. How are the candidates vying for either of those spots? So California allows the top two vote getters to advance to the general election, and that can be regardless of party, which means that we could see two Republicans or two Democrats. In the case of Kevin McCarthy's old seat, which is the 20th district, one of the challenges, is Vince Fong, who used to be an aide to McCarthy, and he has drawn an endorsement from McCarthy and from Trump. But there are a number of other candidates who are seeking the seat as well. On the Senate side in California, there are four main candidates who have drawn the most attention.

On the Democratic side, there's Adam Schiff, who was chair of the House Intelligence Committee and also led the first impeachment of former President Donald Trump. There's also Katie Porter, who represents a seat in Orange County, and is considered an economic progressive. There's also Barbara Lee, who is a prominent anti-war voice and who is particularly well known for being the only lawmaker to vote against the authorization of the military use of force after 9-11. And on the Republican side, there is Steve Garland.

who is a former baseball player, and he has seen quite a bit of momentum going into the race. Now, our colleague Stephanie Kelly recently reported about some of the money influencing these down-ballot races. How is that playing out in some of the elections that you mentioned? So we have seen crypto enthusiasts get heavily involved. This is an industry that Congress has been looking to regulate. And so they poured quite a bunch of money into super PACs. And they backed a candidate in Alabama.

And they've also spent heavily against Katie Porter, who is running for Senate in California. She has questioned power usage by crypto miners. And so they have opposed her as she's seeking to be one of the top two candidates in the California Senate elections. To get the latest on Super Tuesday, check out our live page on roiders.com and on our app. emergency has been declared in Haiti as criminal gangs try to oust the prime minister. The U.S. and Canada have told all citizens to leave the country immediately after armed men broke out thousands of prisoners from the country's biggest jails. Harold Isaac is in Porta-Prince. Harold, Haiti's been plagued by violence. What has sparked this recent curfew? Well, the country

has been in kind of a chronic... security crisis for the last few years. But we're in this special kind of heightened level of gang violence following an official trip of the Prime Minister Ariel Honoree to Kenya, where he went to inked an agreement with Kenyan authorities to have the deployment of police officers in Haiti to help deal with the gang violence. Jimmy Cherizier, also known as barbecue, a former police officer turned notorious gang leader, essentially considered that trip as a provocation, and claims that it helped him unite all the rival gangs to try and topple the government of interim Prime Minister Ariel Henri.

And then he used that force to target the country's prisons. So essentially over the weekend, following a sophisticated and combined attack from several gangs, they managed to break into at least two major detention facilities where they freed over 4,000 people. And that figure is just for one center. We don't know how many inmates were freed in the second major detention center in the country, which was on the other side of town. So that created a new dynamic in the security crisis that was already very serious.

What is the latest on the potential? for help from outside of Haiti to bring things back under control? Well, as of the moment, it is unclear the whereabouts of the prime minister who was supposed to be on his way back from Kenya, from that trip. And it's unclear when he'll be able to get back in. Everybody's waiting for that. But essentially, the gangs are defiant in telling him that he won't be able to be coming back to the country.

And finally, fast wheels on the Formula One track, but the wheels are. of justice move a lot slower. A special edition Ferrari stolen almost 30 years ago in Italy has turned up in Britain. The Ferrari Testa Rossa belongs to Austrian Formula One driver Gerhard Berger. He saw the theft unfold during the 1995 San Marino Grand Prix and even tried, in vain, to give chase in a friend's Volkswagen Golf. Police in Britain have finally tracked the vehicle down after Ferrari reported it was being sold through a British broker to a US buyer. It's worth nearly half million dollars. Another Ferrari stolen the same weekend remains missing. That's it for Tuesday. We'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show. If you want to stay ahead on the news from

around the world, listen in for 10 minutes every weekday. And don't forget to subscribe on your favourite podcast player or download the Reuters app.