Reuters World News - US deaths in Jordan, Evergrande’s liquidation and West Africa's crumbling unity

Episode Date: January 29, 2024

The killing of three U.S. soldiers by Iran-backed militants is piling pressure on President Biden to deal a blow directly against Iran. A Hong Kong court has ordered the liquidation of property giant China Evergrande Group. Plus, three military-run states say they are leaving a regional bloc in West Africa that had been pressuring them to return to democratic rule. 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, US soldiers are killed in an Iran-linked attack in Jordan. The US vows to respond. More countries suspend payments to a UN agency after Hamas raid accusations. Three West African nations say they're leaving the regional bloc, Echo Us. And a court in Hong Kong calls time on what was once China's biggest real estate group. It's Monday, January 29th. This is Reuters World News, bringing you every. everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes every weekday.

I'm Kim Vannell and Wanganui, New Zealand, and I'm Carmel Crimmons in Dublin. Convierre. Convierre your passion in a new-nego with Shopify and bathe records of the ventas with the form of the pago with a better conversion of the world. Has you heard of the world? The incredible system of pago of Shopify facilitates on your site web, in the reds social and in any other place.

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of trial for a euro all month in Shopify comer records Three US soldiers have been killed and more than 30 injured

in a drone strike linked to Iran The attack happened in northeast Jordan near the border with Syria President Joe Biden blamed Iran-backed

groups and has said the US will respond Iran's mission to the United Nations has said that Tehran was not involved. Phil Stewart is in Washington, D.C. Phil, how major of an escalation is this?

This is really a dramatic escalation. It's the kind of thing that U.S. military officials had long worried about. They'd wake up one day and there would be dead U.S. troops and dozens of wounded, and there would have to be some sort of political response. And that's the world we're in. I spoke to one congressional aide who said, we're in a much different world today than we were yesterday. We'll this draw the U.S. into an actual war with Iran. That's the big question right now, is whether the United States is willing to risk a direct confrontation with Iran in order to get some sort of climb down in these wave after wave after wave of attacks that have seen U.S. forces really become sitting ducks, according to some critics, at bases in Iraq and in Syria and now in Jordan, as well as on warships off the coast of Yemen, where they're being fired at almost every day. What sort of calculations will be happening now in Washington? Well, the United States is pledged to respond, but how they respond is a big question.

You know, would the U.S. risk carrying out a strike against Iranian forces inside Iran? Would the United States prefer to carry out strikes against Iranian forces or other forces that actually carried out these attacks in places like Syria or in Iraq? I think probably the administration is looking to do the latter, but it's unclear, given the magnitude of the casualties here in this attack. This attack really ups the ante because we're looking at three years. U.S. dead and dozens of injured U.S. troops in an election year in which President Joe Biden is trying to show that he can run foreign affairs. He can project America's strength in the world. And here we have

U.S. forces coming under attack after attack after attack for months. And there's a lot of criticism in Congress that there hasn't been a strong enough response to stop these attacks. And there's concern among Biden's own Democrats that this thing is spiraling out of control. A court in Hong Kong has order the liquidation of Chinese property giant Evergrand. The move comes two years after the company's official default triggered a sector-wide cash crunch that's still hurting the world's second largest economy. The decision is set to test the reach of Hong Kong courts in the Chinese mainland, where most of Evergrand's assets are based. Claire Jim is in Hong Kong. We don't expect any near-term impact on Evergrand's operation because this is an offshore liquidation and it's going to be a

very lengthy process, and depending on whether Chinese court will also inact recognize the Hong Kong ruling. So there will be a very long time before the offshore creditors of African can take over the onshore units and take over their businesses. So Evergreen CEO told Chinese media in a statement that to ensure home delivery is still their top priority, so they don't expect any impact on that. And they also reiterate that the onshore operation will not be impacted by this offshore liquidation, even though they will cooperate with a petitioner. Austria has become the latest country to suspend funding for the United Nations Agency for Palestinians after allegations a dozen of its staff were involved in the October 7th attack on

Israel. Top donors, including the US and Germany, have paused payments. The UN has urged them to reconsider, warning that aid for 2 million people in Gaza was at stake. The UN has vowed to punish any staff found to have been involved in the Hamas attack. Hungary's far-right party says it would lay claim to a western part of Ukraine if Ukraine loses its statehood from Russia's invasion. The comments were made by the leader of our homeland party, Lashloch Thorokshai. About 150,000 ethnic Hungarians live in that part of Ukraine. Ukraine's security service has said it's uncovered a vast corruption scheme in the purchase of arms by the country's military. The mass procurement fraud totals about $40 million.

More than 50 people have been killed in attacks alongside South Sudan's border with Sudan. Women and children were among the victims, the deadliest in a spade of attack since 2021, over a boundary dispute. The San Francisco 49ers will meet the Kansas City Chiefs in a Super Bowl rematch in Las Vegas. The Chiefs have a chance to win a third NFL title in five years after beating the Baltimore Ravens. Taylor Swift rushed the field to give boyfriend and touchdown-scoring tight end Travis Kelsey a victory kiss. But will she make the Super Bowl? The superstar has a tour date the night before in Tokyo,

meaning either a rush to get there or a blank space in her seat. A Brexit-style breakup is on the cards for parts of West Africa. Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso have all announced they're leaving the economic community of West African states known as ECOWAS. All three countries are under military rule following coups. Bait Felix is in Dakar. Bait, what does this mean for regional security? It is a huge concern in terms of regional security, because as we know, these three countries,

one of the arguments that they put forward for their reason to leave the ECOWAS, is that ECOWAS has not supported them as they continue to battle insurgencies, and they've been struggling for nearly a decade now, especially Mali. And to them, ECOWAS hasn't done enough to support them in this fight. And instead, when the military leaders took over, ECOWAS slapped sanctions on them, which is penalizing them and hampering their efforts to tackle the security issue that to them is even more important than any kind of democratic progress. So, I mean, them living would even make the task difficult

because ECOWAS has been trying to put together a standby force that could help countries that are facing security challenges, but they've not been able to do so because of financial problems. How will Europe and the US be viewing this? These three countries decided to leave ECOWAS at this moment, at this juncture, it's going to be of great concern because from what we've seen so far, the EU and the US, has been working with the main organisation itself, especially on security matters, they try to support regional efforts. These three countries have recently turned to Russia that has increased its security

presence in the region. I think last week, some Russian troops arrived in Burkina. So they've been present in Mali for over a year now. And increasingly, we're going to expect them to tend to Russia for help. Does this mean these military rulers are likely to be in place indefinitely now? Likely, likely. Mali was supposed to organize elections next month. but they postpone it indefinitely. There is no shadow timetable for any kind of election in Burkina Faso. And in Niger, we are not even talking about a timetable as of now. They don't even have a transitional parliament in place.

So it's unlikely that we'll see any return to constitutional rule in any of these countries. Under ECOWAS rules, countries are meant to give one year's notice that they're leaving, right? So even if this does go ahead, how difficult. will any withdrawal be? It's going to be complex because there's quite a lot of things to untangle. These three countries are landlocked. They depend on, you know, the parts of their neighbors and the ECOWAS resumed for most of their imports.

And it is going to be tricky to see how they're going to deal with increased tariffs and, you know, their citizens would need to, you know, now apply for visas and so on. Tourists in Venice welcome the start of carnival on the city's iconic canals. This year's flotilla includes a boat in the shape of a giant rat and a gondolier Elvis. This year is the last free event. Venice is set to introduce a five euro entrance fee for daytrippers. Authorities say the charge will help manage the flow of tourists drawn to the fragile lagoon city. That's it for today's episode of Reuters World News.

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