Reuters World News - What 25 years of peace looks like in Northern Ireland

Episode Date: April 7, 2023

We're on the streets of Belfast for the anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. Our photographer walks us through what it was like to take this week's most memorable photo inside a New York courtroom and the azaleas are out at Augusta as golf deals with new rivalries.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The agreement proposes changes in the Irish Constitution and in British constitutional law to enshrine the principle that it is the people of Northern Ireland who will decide, democratically, their own future. Today, we're in Northern Ireland, 25 years after an historic peace agreement that ended years of bloodshed. And from divided Ireland to a divided sport, how Gulf's first major of the year, is taking place under a cloud, both literally and metaphorically, as the schism between rival tours deepens. Plus, we go behind the scenes on what it took to get the photo of the week,

inside the courtroom with former President Donald Trump. It's Friday, April 7th. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes. I'm Kim Vennel in London. And I'm Christopher Waljasper in Chicago. We start with the headlines, making news around the world. Israeli jets struck South Lebanon and the Gaza Strip

after a heavy barrage of rocket attacks blamed on Palestinian militias. Tensions in the Middle East threatened to spiral out of control for the Jewish and Muslim holidays after police raids on Al-Aksa Mosque in Jerusalem. In the United States, the Biden administration has weighed in on transgender athletes in schools. It's proposed a rule change that stops schools

from outright banning trans athletes, but does allow them to prevent trans athletes from competing on certain teams. Separately, the Supreme Court refused to enforce a West Virginia ban on trans athletes on female public school teams. And in Tennessee, an extraordinary moment in the state legislature when two Democratic lawmakers were expelled. The two young black lawmakers were unseated for leading a protest calling for stricter gun laws. It comes after a week of funerals for the victims of the Nashville.

school shooting. Aeroida's report has found that some Tesla employees have shared videos and images recorded by customers' car cameras. Some of the recordings shared on the company's internal messaging system show customers in crashes or road rage incidents. One ex-employee described a video of a man approaching a vehicle completely naked. Tesla and CEO Elon Musk didn't respond to requests for comment. To Northern Ireland on the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. The deal ended what was one of the world's longest sectarian conflicts. In the 1970s and 80s, this was the regular soundtrack to daily life. Sectarian violence meant thousands of lives lost over three decades, known as the Troubles.

In Belfast, in other northern Irish towns, bombings of shops and businesses were a frequent occurrence. By the mid-90s, though, a shift had taken place and calls. for peace grew. This generation of Republicans is going to see peace in Ireland. Jerry Adams was a leading figure in the campaign for a united Ireland. Three years of talks finally led to the Good Friday Agreement

announced by Tony Blair on April 10th, 1998. The deal would eventually see decades of violence brought to an end. Today, the bloodshed between Protestants and Catholics has stopped. Uncertainty and uncertainty and unease continues, though. Political tensions remain. But Belfast is a very different place 25 years on from the troubles. Amanda Ferguson takes us for a walk through its streets. So I've just been on the Falls Road in West Belfast and passed through what's known as a peace wall

to get to the Shankler Road. The communities here have been on the front end of the conflict and during the height of Northern Ireland's sectarian violence involving paramilitaries and the state. Daily bombs and shootings were a fact of life here. 25 years on from the Good Friday Agreement, the streets are bustling with people going in and out of cafes and shops and the local doctor's office, but derelict buildings and wasteland and other signs of poverty are all around.

It's Belfast, so of course it's raining and families are preparing for the Easter break. Murals and memorials to the dead are everywhere and the passing tour buses are a sign of the international interest in our story. So while the florist shops on the falls Road are full of green, white and orange floral displays and Easter lilies, shop windows on the shankle

Road include merchandise to mark the upcoming coronation of King Charles, red, white and blue flags, bags and cushions, to a large extent people remain segregated from their neighbours despite lots of painstaking cross community work that goes on. Those tall barriers and gates

known as peace walls of which there's around a hundred keep Republican and nationalist areas separate from the loyalist or pro-British neighbourhoods. Of course, one of the greatest outcomes of the peace is that a whole generation of people have grown up without the violence that was the daily reality for older generations.

Bethany Moore is one of the young people. She's one of Northern Ireland's so-called peace babies, the generation born just after the Good Friday Agreement, and she's grateful for the peace but wants to see more progress. We're in the midst of a cost-to-living crisis, we're in a healthcare crisis, so why we maybe don't have

soldiers on streets. There still is a lot of work to be done to end poverty, deprivation, social justice issues here. Peace can't exist in its full capacity without prosperity to match. I'm Amanda Ferguson in Belfast. By now you've probably seen a photo of former President Trump seated between his lawyers in criminal court. He's hunched over in a dark blue suit looking directly into the camera. That photo was likely taken by Andrew Kelly, one of only a handful of photographers inside the courtroom for the historic moment. Hey, Andrew. How's it going? Tell us what it was like to be in the room watching a former U.S. president appear in criminal court. I mean, we were in there so briefly. I think from the

first photo I took to the last photo was 61 seconds. You're aware of what's going on, but you're really just thinking of all the different photos you need to try and get in. And then it's when you come out that you go like, oh my God, that just happened. I'm still processing it. Like, there's still things that come back to me. It was a minute, but there's still little things I remember. Like what? I was wondering if I'd be able to see his face properly.

Like, I was curious, is he going to put a fist in the air? Like, is he going to turn away from us? Is he going to hide? And as soon as we walked in, he just, like, stared at me. I just was taking photos. And then he looked at the next guy and then the next guy. And I was like, that's what celebrities do on red carpets. You know, they make sure everybody gets icons.

What was going through your head not only as you were planning the shot, but then as you were actually executing? I really knew that I had to remember to take like a wide whole room shot because you see it's just like a historical document. Like these are as many people as I could get in the photo. This is who was in the room. There's journalists at the back. There's secret servers. There's court officers just to show the whole real scene. So anyone can look at it and just imagine exactly what it was like where I stood.

You know, you see those paintings like it's like this is. the day the Declaration of Independence was signed and it's just like the A-listers at the front and then like, you know, all the faces in those paintings that you see at the Met or whatever I wanted to do something a little bit like that. I got like three frames and it was just like I really hope they're sharp. The Masters has teed off in Augusta. The azaleas are in full bloom and the favourite cheese sandwiches are out. But this year there's some controversy. Our very own Amy Tennery caught up with sports reporter Frank Pengway in Augusta. Hi, I'm Amy Tennery. I'm a sports reporter with Reuters. And today I am joined by my co-worker, Frank Pingway. He's surrounded by free pimento cheese sandwiches. Frank, how's it going?

Hi, Amy. Let me just put down my pimento cheese sandwich here. It's going great. Thank you. Great. So you've been there since Monday. We have golfers from the standard PGA tour, the one everyone knows, and also live golf, which is the breakaway tour backed by the Saudis. All those live golfers, They're now shoulder to shoulder with a lot of the players they kind of left behind. Well, the Live Golf Tour, it lured some pretty big name players from the PJ Tour with astronomical sums of money. And a big part of the controversy is the source of the money because it is funded by the Saudi Arabian public investment fund. Some people consider it blood money and the players are not happy that others have gone to accept that money. One of those would include veteran Fred couples who had some choice words for some of his former colleagues on the PGA tour. I have no problem with any of them.

Just please do not bash a tour that I have 43 years invested in. It bothers the hell out of me. They don't bother me. And of course, one of the most highly anticipated golfers who's coming back to the fold is three-time champion Phil Nicholson. He's a fan favorite. He wasn't competing last year after comments that he made about. live golf and the PGA tour. Got a lot of backlash.

Frank, what's your sense of how he's feeling? I think Mickelson can do no wrong around this place. Everyone loves him. He's a perennial fan favorite. He's considered as much part of the Masters as the vibrant Azaleas at Augusta National. Well, Frank, I hope you have a great rest of your weekend there and best of luck with that torrential rain.

Thank you, Amy. That's it for this week on Reuters World News. We'll be back on Monday. Remember, you can follow us on your favorite podcast platform or download the Reuters app.