Reuters World News - US warships on alert, Ukraine funding and SCOTUS on the Sacklers

Episode Date: December 5, 2023

The US Navy is on high alert in the Red Sea after a series of drone attacks by Iran-backed Houthi rebels. Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskiy is set to appeal directly to senators after the White House warned US funding for the war is running out. Supreme Court justices appear split over whether to approve a bankruptcy settlement with the makers of OxyContin. Israel investigates allegations of sexual violence by Hamas. Plus, COP28 turns its attention to fossil fuels and a former US ambassador is charged over spying for Cuba. 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, Ukraine's Vladimir Zelensky to appeal directly to US senators for funding. The Supreme Court weighs whether to uphold a bankruptcy settlement that would shield the Sackler family. The Pentagon is on high alert after Red Sea attacks. And the investigation into alleged Hamas sex attacks. It's Tuesday, December 5th. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front of lines in 10 minutes. Every weekday. I'm Kim Vinal in London. Ukraine's president, Vladimir Zelensky, will appeal to senators today for fresh military assistance. His video appearance comes after the White

House warned U.S. funding for Ukraine's war will run out by the end of the year. Congress hasn't approved any new money for Ukraine since Republicans took over the House from Democrats in January. Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin seems to be gearing up for a re-election campaign. He visited an exhibition of Russian achievement and met with schoolchildren in front of state-run media. The exhibition included an explanation of Soviet nuclear bomb design, including a mock nuclear button, which Putin declined to press. Russians head to the polls in March. For over 40 years, Rocha. acted as a covert agent of the Cuban government.

That's U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, talking about Victor Manuel Rocha, former U.S. ambassador to Bolivia. He's gained the notoriety of pulling off the longest-lasting of the U.S. government by a foreign agent. He admitted to his decades of spying on behalf of Cuba to an undercover FBI agent. And he repeatedly bragged about the significant of his efforts, saying that, quote, what has been done has strengthened the revolution immensely. Supreme Court justices appear split over whether to approve a bankruptcy settlement

with Purdue Farmer, the maker of OxyContin. Under that deal, the SACLA family, Purdue's owners, would receive immunity in exchange for paying up to $6 billion to settle thousands of lawsuits over their role in a deadly opioid epidemic. Justice's voiced concern the deal would shield the wealthy owners, but they also worried that blocking it could harm victims. Dietrich Canalt covers U.S. bankruptcy courts.

The whole debate is whether the Sacklers, who are not bankrupt, can benefit from legal protections from lawsuits, which are normally meant to protect bankrupt companies or bankrupt individuals. What would be the broad effect of the court ruling either way? So if the Supreme Court decides that this bankruptcy plan is illegal and that the Sacklers cannot be protected from opioid lawsuits, then the deal falls apart. And the justice has heard two very different versions of what would happen next. The Biden administration said that because people would be free to litigate against the Sacklers, they would have more leverage to negotiate a better deal. Purdue and its creditors basically argued that.

it would be a victim against victim raised to the courthouse. Whoever got the first judgment against the Sacklers would gobble up all of the money available, and most creditors would be left with nothing. And if they uphold the deal? Courts have been split on whether or not bankrupt companies or people can extend legal protections to others who contribute to the settlements, like the Sacklers are contributing to the Purdue settlement. So a Supreme Court ruling that these types of deals are legal would actually allow similar settlements to be reached in places where they're currently not available,

including California and Texas. Israeli forces are pressing ahead with air and ground bombardment of southern Gaza, killing and wounding dozens of Palestinians. Asked about the mounting death toll, State Department spokesman Matt Miller said it was too soon to say whether Israel was doing enough to protect civilians. On markets, Moody's rating agency has cut China's credit outlook to negative.

The move reflects growing concerns about debt levels in China. Over to the UN climate summit in Dubai, where today's theme is energy and fossil fuels. Our very own Tara Oaks is there, and Tara, it seems the cop president, Sultan Al Jaber, is still on the defensive. Yes, comments made by Al Jaba a couple of weeks ago have become a major point of contention here. A video surfaced of him saying there was no science to suggest phasing out of. fossil fuels is needed to restrict global warming. So yesterday he fiercely rejected allegations that he didn't respect climate science.

The science is what dictates our strategy for our strategic imperatives and the objectives we want to deliver at COP 28. But one statement taken out of context with misrepresentation and misinterpretation that gets maximum coverage. Now at the intense negotiation phase of this summit and fossil fuels are a key sticking point. Fasing out fossil fuels is a possibility to end up in the text approved by the nearly 200 nations here. But our reporting has shown that none of the world's major oil and gas producing countries, including the US and China, have plans to eventually stop drilling for those fuels.

So negotiators will have a hard road ahead to try and square that circle. Antara Oaks and Dubai. You can hear more about the issues at this year's climate summit and the implications for communities in our two weekend podcasts. There's a link to them in the description of today's podcast. The striking of three commercial ships by missiles fired by Houthi rebels in the Red Sea has the U.S. Navy on high alert. National security reporter Idris Ali is in Washington, D.C., with the latest on the Pentagon's actions. Idris, how is the U.S. responding? They're in this sort of immediate zone right now of providing immediate help to these vessels,

potentially shooting down objects that might be coming close, although it's unclear if they are the target of it. Do we know anything about what the longer term response by the Pentagon might look like? The United States has surged a huge amount of naval firepower to the broader Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean, including two carrier strike groups, which include thousands of sailors and Marines and other warships around the region as well. So what we don't know the answer to yet is what more they can do. We had a statement yesterday saying the U.S. could respond and would talk to allies in the region. And so we're sort of in a situation where we wait and see and get more details on what that includes. Saudi Arabia has been negotiating with the Houthis to end their

war in Yemen. How are they responding? Yeah. We haven't heard much in terms of from Saudi Arabia. either condemning or taking action to sort of stop some of the attempts which are pretty close to their border as well. What we've seen is the Saudis have really been interested in sort of maintaining this stalemate that has taken place with the Houthis. And so there's questions about really how far they want to go, given that it could impact their own internal peace if they push the Houthis too far or if they push the Americans too far to respond to this in some way. a warning that some listeners may find this next segment upsetting. Israeli police are investigating possible sex crimes. They say were committed by Hamas militants during the October 7th attack. Hamas vigorously denies the accusations of abuse.

And gathering evidence is proving difficult for Israeli investigators in a time of combat. Mayan Lubal is in Jerusalem. Mayan, what are the men? challenges for investigators? The challenges for the investigation are the fact that many of the victims simply are dead and cannot tell us what happened. The second challenge is a forensic challenge. You cannot gather forensics from where there is combat. You can't seal off the scene. Bodies were removed and the first priority was to identify bodies. There were hundreds of them to identify bodies and notify the families. What happened to their loved ones? So you can't really

use a rape kit. It's no good after 48 hours. Some of the bodies were in a condition where you can't tell if they were bruised or if they were raped from their injuries. On the other hand, police say they do have witnesses and they have what they call digital forensics, which is footage from Hamas body cameras, from CCTV footage, drone footage, dash cams from cars of the victims, mobile phone footage that they are piecing together to prosecute general atrocities, not just sexual violence, but including sexual violence. Then they also have hundreds of people, hundreds of gunmen who they court. They are in custody. They are being interrogated. How was Israel planning on prosecuting these alleged crimes? Israel doesn't know yet how it's going to prosecute the crimes.

It has said that it's going to bring everyone in court, bring them to justice for atrocities committed, including sexual violence. But how it's going to do that, that's a challenge. How do you link a specific suspect to a specific victim when the victim is dead and you don't have any kind of DNA proving that this specific suspect did X or Y? The United Nations is also investigating the allegations of sexual violence by Hamas. That's it for today's episode of Reuters World News. We'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show.

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