Reuters World News - ‘Uninvestible’ China, coup bid in Gabon and tased and tattooed at Axon

Episode Date: August 31, 2023

The military claims it has seized power in Gabon. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo says American firms have told her China has become 'uninvestible'. How do the comments impact U.S.-China relations? Some former employees at Taser maker Axon say loyalty meant being tased, tattooed. Plus, Florida braces for Hurricane Idalia and Prigozhin is buried in St Petersburg. 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, a coup attempt in oil-rich Gabon triggers fresh instability in Africa. Hurricane Idalia is gathering speed as it barrels towards Florida. China takes the uninvestable label in its stride, and some former staffers at Taser Maker Axon say loyalty meant being tased or tattooed. It's Wednesday, August 30th. This is Reuters World News, with everything you need to know from the first. front lines in 10 minutes every weekday. I'm Kim Vinal in London. We start in Gabon, where a group of army officers are claiming to have seized power in the West African nation. It's the latest in a spate

of coups and coup attempts on the continent, which are threatening stability and concerning the West. Edward McAllister is Reuters' chief correspondent for West and Central Africa. Edward, what do we know so far? Essentially, in the early hours of the morning, just after election results were announced saying that President Ali Bongo had won an emphatic election victory, some soldiers appeared on national television to say that they were taking power and that they were dissolving government, they were closing borders, and they were taking control. How important is Gabon? It's got substantial oil production. It's also been an ally with the war. West to try and conserve a lot of the central rainforests of Central Africa. Ali Bongo, the president, was big on conservation.

So it's been a big factor there as well. What does this mean for democracy there? This is the latest in a spate of coups in the region. And there's a lot of concern about a backslide in democratic progress in Western Central Africa. They had seen some advances into democratically elected governance in the last couple of decades. That appears to be being wiped out now. We've had three or four coups across the Sahel region, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad, and now Gabon. Now for the other headlines

making news around the world. Hurricane Edalia is swirling towards a direct hit on Florida's Big Bend region. The storm is currently packing wind speeds of 120 miles per hour and is expected to intensify further and become a major hurricane. René Hoffman lives in the small coastal town of Steinhachie. My son's a law enforcement officer, and he's encouraged me real bad to leave. They have ordered a lot of body bags. They're expecting some fatalities, so I don't want to be one of them. It's scary, you know, to think that water could come up this high.

We've never had water up here before. Russia says it's foiled one of the biggest Ukrainian drone attacks so far in the west of the country. Moscow says it shot down unmanned aircraft of at least six regions and destroyed a Ukrainian naval attack on the Crimean Peninsula. In Kiev, at least two people were killed and what's been described as a massive Russian missile and drone attack on the Ukrainian capital. The funeral of Russian mercenary chief, Yevgeny Progogsian, has taken place. in a quiet ceremony on the outskirts of St. Petersburg. It took place away from the glare of media.

It's thought only around 20 to 30 family members and friends attended the ceremony. Australia's confirmed the date for a landmark referendum on whether to change the constitution to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced it will take place on October 14th. Every Australian will have a, once in a generation chance to bring our country together and to change it for the better. It's now time for markets with Carmel Crimmons. Carmel, what's going on? Well, US job openings data dipped and that's bolstering the case for the Fed to press pause on rates.

So that's lifting markets and it's good news for equity investors. But I thought I'd give a shout out to chocolate markets today, Kim, because the news there is not so good, if you're a consumer, that is. London Cocoa Futures keep hitting 46-year-hounds. highs. Why? Supplies have been tightening because of crop problems in West Africa, and that's creating a really large global deficit in the current crop season. In fact, the international COCO organization is expected to issue an update this week and could increase the size of its deficit projection. So we better start stockpiling those chocolate bars. Commerce Secretary Gina Ramondo says U.S. companies have labeled China as uninvestable,

her bluntest comments yet on a trip to China. It's a bleak picture of how American firms view China, but will it make things any worse between D.C. and Beijing. Dave Shepardson is on the trip with Rommando. Well, so far we don't know, is this about jawboning China into actually taking actions over all these complaints? I mean, so far, the Chinese government has offered a pretty measured response to Rommando's comments, hasn't escalated. And I think given China's economic troubles, there's certainly incentive for them to try to ease tensions and find ways to increase bilateral trade.

Just a quick warning, some of this audio might be disturbing to some listeners. The sound you're hearing is of a person being tased. A taser is an electroshock gun used by police departments to subdue people believed to be resisting arrest. But this woman is actually an employee of Axon, a company that makes the taser weapon, which is sold to police forces across the United States. In fact, Axon has a kind of ritual of using its weapons on employees, what they call an exposure.

And they're not shy about it. This is audio taken from an Axon YouTube video. Some Axon employees, interviewed by Reuters, stressed that the exposures are a celebratory team-building right of passage into the company's culture. Others, though, strongly disagreed. Jeffrey Daston has the story. Okay, Jeffrey, we've heard the audio.

What is going on here? Axon has tested employees' commitment in unusual ways that some staff embraced wholeheartedly, but others felt were extreme and potentially dangerous. That includes tasings, but also getting company-branded tattoos. Many former employees we interviewed described Axon as a boys club that was unwelcoming or even offensive to women. This included individuals who said they were forced out of the company after they requested or took parental leave. It included a male lawyer who described the culture as toxic, unlike anything he's seen in 20 years of practice. And of course, it include some people who liked the culture, liked the mementos they received

for undergoing a taser exposure. But for those who weren't tased, for those who didn't take other measures showing their loyalty to the company, many felt sidelined. Axon and its chief executive, Rick Smith, disputed that employees were forced into anything and that the company also said those claims staff felt sidelined. those claims weren't rooted in fact. Axon promotes tasers as less lethal weapons for law enforcement, but they're not without risk, right?

tasers carry a lot of risks, even in the words of the company. Axon employees who volunteer to be tased to sign a waiver that warns of the potential for death at least 12 times. And looking outside Axon, more than a thousand people have died following incidents in which police have used axon's tasers and that's that's according to a previous reuters investigation. Some workplace experts told us that this is a recognized hazard and it's a hazard of which Axon itself appears to be aware. Convierte your passion in a business with Shopify and batter records of ventas with the form

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in Shopify. orgs. That's it for today's episode of Royce's World News. We'll be back with our daily headline show on Thursday.

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