Reuters World News - Where in the world is Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin?

Episode Date: July 7, 2023

Yevgeny Prigozhin was supposed to be in Belarus under a deal brokered to end the Wagner Group’s mutiny. Now, Belarus' president says he's in Russia. Janet Yellen arrives in Beijing with a warning, Twitter threatens Meta Threads, and Silvio Berlusconi divides up his empire. 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. *Correction: The podcast incorrectly referred to a tweet by Twitter owner Elon Musk that was sent from a parody account. The reference has been removed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, what we know and don't know about the whereabouts of Wagner's mercenary boss. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen tells Beijing to adopt market reforms, or the US and its allies, will fight back. Twitter threatens legal action against its new rival meta-threads. And Silvio Belisconi's will is made public. It's Friday, July 7th. This is Reuters' World News, with everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes every week. day. I'm David Spencer. And I'm Tara Oaks in London. We start with the latest breaking news from around the world. Janet Yellen has touched down in Beijing with a warning for officials

over China's treatment of international firms. Yellens insisted that the US is not seeking a wholesale decoupling of the two economies, but criticise Beijing's use of subsidies and punitive actions against U.S. companies. The U.S. seeks healthy economic competition with China, but healthy economic competition, where both sides benefit, is only sustainable if that competition is fair. The Treasury Secretary will meet a slew of top officials and business leaders in a trip meant to calm growing tensions between the two superpowers.

Twitter is threatening to sue META over its new third. thread's platform. A lawyer's letter sent to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg accuses him of hiring former employees and gaining access to company's secrets. The US plans to send cluster munitions to Ukraine to help it battle Russia. The move faces opposition by human rights groups, but would provide a powerful new element to Ukraine's counter-offensive. The munitions, banned in more than 120 countries, typically release large numbers of smaller bomblets that can kill indiscriminately over a wide area, threatening civilians. Joe Biden's to attend a NATO summit next week in Lithuania, expected to be dominated by the war in Ukraine. If you're listening on Spotify,

let us know what you'd like to know about next week's NATO summit in our Q&A. After an abortive attempt at a mutiny, Russia's Wagner Group chief was supposed to be headed to Belarus. At least, that's what a deal brokered between Yevgeny, Pregojin and President Vladimir Putin was supposed to look like. Now, Belarus's Alexander Lukashenko says Prigogian is actually in Russia. Breaking News lead writer for Russia, Mark Trevelyan, is one of the Reuters team trying to track progoshin's movements. Mark, when did we last actually see him?

So the last sighting of Pregojin was nearly two weeks ago now at the end of that short-lived mutiny where his fighters had taken. taken control of the southern city of Rostov. What we have seen in the interim is a TV show produced footage of what it said was a raid on Brigasian's offices and one of his palatial residences in St. Petersburg, and it showed all kinds of extraordinary materials that had allegedly been found. A lot of money, gold bars, wigs, supposedly to disguise. at Pregocean. And the message from this extensive TV report was that they're still going after Pregocean. They haven't dropped the case and he's still very much under investigation, which is not what we were told by the Kremlin at the time. What might it mean if he is still in Russia? Some people think maybe he's being given time to tie up the loose ends of his business empire

in Russia before clearing off for good. It could mean that he's miscalculated. Maybe he's overplaying his hand, maybe he is seriously at risk of being arrested and prosecuted. I think the real problem for Putin would be if precaution remained in Russia and started to speak out again in defiance of Vladimir Putin, because at the moment the Kremlin is maintaining this line that we don't really know and we don't really care what he's doing, but that sits rather uncomfortably with that the way in which Putin himself played up the significance of the Wagner mutiny. And what about the rest of the Wagner fighters? They were given the option of going to Belarus too. They were given that option, but it doesn't seem that's happened. And Lukashenko said yesterday,

it was not clear if they would be coming and how many would be coming, although he did say he'd made a former Soviet military base available for their use if they wanted to. And today we have a reporter in the group of journalists who are being taken to see this base. So it will be interesting to see what happens and what the Belarusian authorities are actually going to show them there. It's a succession drama, Italian style. And now we have an answer as to who got what in Silvio Belisconi's will. Keith Weir has seen the billionaire's will, which has just been made public. Keith, any surprises? I think the most interesting thing is that Silvio Berlusconi has put his two eldest children firmly in charge of the family businesses in this will.

What it kind of results in is a bit of a sort of 60-40 split between the two eldest children from his first marriage and the three younger ones from his second marriage. There have been some other interesting details, right? Interesting recipients? The couple of eye-catching things, Marta Faschina, who was Berlusconi's last partner, 33-year-old, she was given 100 million euros in the will. And it wouldn't be Burlesconi with that a little bit of controversy, a man called Marcello de Lutri, who was a friend of Berluscones from University Days, a long-time business associate. He got 30 million euros, and the twist here is the fact that he was convicted in 2014 for Mafia Collusion and actually served time behind bars.

And what does this mean for the companies in his business empire? What they've said so far is very much being a kind of business as usual mantra from Pierre Silvio, who runs the TV business, which is probably the best known of. them and Marina, the eldest daughter, was already the chairperson of Finin investor family holding. So it doesn't look like in the short term there will be dramatic changes. The other thing that's up in the air is not really in the wheel for obvious reasons is the future of Berlusconi's Fortir Italia party. The leadership of that is up for grabs and that will have to be resolved in the coming months. So that could have a knock-on effect on the coalition government because

Forteotalia is part of Georgia Maloney's coalition government that's been in place for the last few months in Italy. To Wimbledon, where the first week's major excitement has mostly been off court. Roger Federer's in the Royal Box, but not playing. There's no Raffa Nidal, and the often box office Nick Kierrez dropped out before the tournament. But there has been a protest and rain. Covering the first week's action has been Mitch Phillips. Mitch, you're there.

Has Wimbledon lacked a bit of spark so far? Yes, at first glance, it does. seem to lack that star dust of those names that you mentioned, and Serena on the women's side. But for a long time, you know, people have been demanding the next gen steps up and challenge these guys. So Djokovic is there as the big gun to be shot out, and it's up to the next generation,

like Alcaraz, number one seed here, to step into the void and make their mark as the next level of stars. What about that protest, though? Has it affected the tournament organisation? Yeah, I mean, it wasn't much of an impact in actuality. It only impacted the games for just a few minutes. It was just a bit of a sprinkling of the paper.

But the players themselves said they had a bit of a mental impact on them. They do feel vulnerable. You know, they're very close to the fans. And it had been expected. So everyone was kind of on their toes waiting for a protest. Given that it was expected then, how is it actually allowed to happen? There's 18 courts. There's thousands of people standing around them.

And people smuggling in a few things down their pocket. It's literally impossible to stop someone jumping on, You can get them off quickly. You can probably keep them off centre court because they've got security guards. But these outside courts are surrounded by fans who are just a metre away from the tramline. So it's a physical impossibility.

You just have to hope that they don't do anything really dramatic that could hurt the player. That's all we have for today's edition of Reuters World News. We'll be back on Monday with our daily news show. To make sure you know what's going on in the world, don't forget to subscribe on your favourite podcast player or download the Reuters app.