Latest / The Rest of the World Podcast / The Rest of the World Report | September 29, 2026 — Evening Edition

Transcript

The Rest of the World Report | September 29, 2026 — Evening Edition · The Rest of the World Podcast

• 0:00
  [music]
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Good evening from Paris,
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Rudy Martinez with The Rest of the World Report for Tuesday evening,
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: September 29th.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sued three Israeli media outlets
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: and five journalists for defamation on Tuesday.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: The suit targets Haaretz,
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  SPEAKER_00: Yedioth Aharonoth,
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  SPEAKER_00: and Channel 12,
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  SPEAKER_00: along with journalists Shlomi Eldar,
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  SPEAKER_00: Yuri Misgov, Nadav Eyal, Barak Ravid, and Attila Somfavi.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Netanyahu is seeking 2.6 million shekels.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's about $850,000.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: The reports at issue said Netanyahu received advanced October 7th warnings
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  SPEAKER_00: from UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed
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  SPEAKER_00: and Egypt's intelligence chief Abbas Kamel.
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  SPEAKER_00: Likud called the report a complete lie,
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  SPEAKER_00: timed deliberately for the eve of an election by political rivals
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  SPEAKER_00: and hostile foreign elements.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: The lawsuit landed the same day as Netanyahu's own coalition split publicly over
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: a different crisis.
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  SPEAKER_00: More than 100 settlers rioted overnight in the West Bank village of Jalud,
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  SPEAKER_00: covered in this morning's edition.
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  SPEAKER_00: By Tuesday afternoon,
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  SPEAKER_00: Israel's political leadership was arguing openly about what the riot meant.
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  SPEAKER_00: Netanyahu called the rioters a handful who do not represent the law-abiding settler community.
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  SPEAKER_00: Defense Minister Israel Katz used nearly identical language.
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  SPEAKER_00: He said the rioters were interfering with the efforts to thwart Palestinian terrorism.
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  SPEAKER_00: Opposition leader Gadi Isenot, Netanyahu's main political rival, rejected that framing.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: He called the violence the direct result of a dangerous policy.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Democrats' chairman Yair Golan went further, naming the coalition directly.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: The government, he said, is playing with fire.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeshatid chairman Yair Lapid rejected the word rioters altogether.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: They are not rioters, they are terrorists, he wrote on X.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: A family member told Haaretz that settlers surrounded the family homes and broke into one.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: The family fled to the roof under the protection of security forces before they were evacuated.
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  SPEAKER_00: Settlers then set fire to the homes and a vehicle.
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  SPEAKER_00: The riot kept the family from returning to the home
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  SPEAKER_00: a high court order had cleared them to reoccupy.
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  SPEAKER_00: Translators note, Israeli coverage tonight isn't reporting a riot.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's reporting a government arguing with itself about one in public a month before an election.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Haaretz's roundup put Netanyahu's own defense minister echoing
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  SPEAKER_00: the prime minister's handful framing right next
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  SPEAKER_00: to his chief political rival calling it a dangerous policy.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: That split ran alongside a defamation suit against three of the outlets doing the reporting.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: The divide isn't between Israel and its critics.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's inside the coalition itself.
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  SPEAKER_00: What American readers need to know.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: A sitting prime minister is suing his own country's press over reporting
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  SPEAKER_00: on Israel's biggest intelligence failure a month before voters go to the polls.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: The lawsuit and the coalition's public fracture over settler violence landed in the same week.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Accountability for October 7th is itself on the ballot.
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  SPEAKER_00: A bench trial over alleged racial harassment at Tesla's Fremont,
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  SPEAKER_00: California factory is underway in Alameda County Superior Court.
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  SPEAKER_00: Judge Peter Borkin is deciding the case without a jury.
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  SPEAKER_00: California's Civil Rights Department sued Tesla in 2022 after a three-year investigation.
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  SPEAKER_00: The state alleges Tesla permitted widespread racial harassment of black workers.
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  SPEAKER_00: Court filings describe a racial slur as especially pervasive at the factory.
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  SPEAKER_00: Those filings say workers called it the plantation.
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  SPEAKER_00: The state also alleges a $1,533 monthly pay gap between black and white workers
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  SPEAKER_00: from June 2018 through 2024.
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  SPEAKER_00: It further alleges discriminatory job assignments,
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  SPEAKER_00: promotions, and discipline, plus retaliation against employees who complained.
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  SPEAKER_00: Former security manager Nadia Clark testified that a white co-worker repeatedly used
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  SPEAKER_00: the slur against her.
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  SPEAKER_00: The work environment was unsafe, hostile, and I never returned, she said.
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  SPEAKER_00: Other witnesses described being written up after reporting slurs to HR,
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  SPEAKER_00: with complaints going unresolved.
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  SPEAKER_00: Tesla's attorney,
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  SPEAKER_00: Tyree P.
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  SPEAKER_00: Jones Jr.,
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  SPEAKER_00: argued in opening statements that the slur functions as a term of respect
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  SPEAKER_00: and endearment within parts of the black community.
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  SPEAKER_00: He told the court the word itself was not on trial.
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  SPEAKER_00: Tesla denies wrongdoing and says it investigates complaints and disciplines
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  SPEAKER_00: or fires employees found responsible.
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  SPEAKER_00: The trial is expected to run through October 30th and follows a 2023 EEOC lawsuit
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  SPEAKER_00: against Tesla over what federal regulators call a pervasive pattern of racial abuse
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  SPEAKER_00: at the same plant.
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  SPEAKER_00: What American readers need to know.
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  SPEAKER_00: A California court is hearing sworn testimony about a workplace nicknamed
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  SPEAKER_00: the plantation, and a legal defense arguing a slur can be a compliment.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's an ongoing trial with almost no national coverage.
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  SPEAKER_00: The same factory was first sued by federal regulators over the same allegations three years ago.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Cameroon recorded roughly 50 femicides between January and April of this year,
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  SPEAKER_00: according to the country's Ministry for Women and the Family.
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  SPEAKER_00: That figure alone matches the entire yearly total for 2023.
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  SPEAKER_00: The toll climbed to 67 in 2024 and 77 in 2025.
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  SPEAKER_00: Last month alone, nearly 10 women were killed.
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  SPEAKER_00: Geraldine Achia, a teacher in her 30s, was beaten to death between September 5th and 6th.
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  SPEAKER_00: Her husband, the prime suspect, was arrested more than 300 kilometers from Yaoundé.
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  SPEAKER_00: He denies killing her.
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  SPEAKER_00: Her son and sister testify to the injuries she suffered.
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  SPEAKER_00: Senator Francois Puene, a woman's rights advocate, put the pace starkly.
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  SPEAKER_00: We're seeing murder every 10 minutes,
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  SPEAKER_00: she said,
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  SPEAKER_00: pointing to economic strain since the COVID-19 pandemic as a contributing factor.
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  SPEAKER_00: Investigating magistrate,
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  SPEAKER_00: Martine Ahandatana said the absence of
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: a specific femicide law leaves prosecution inconsistent.
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  SPEAKER_00: Each judge, she said, will base their rulings on the facts presented to them.
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  SPEAKER_00: Vivian Tahiyande directs the advocacy group Stop Femicides 237.
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  SPEAKER_00: She cited impunity and a taboo around prosecuting perpetrators as driving the toll higher.
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  SPEAKER_00: A bill years in the making would make femicide its own crime, separate from ordinary murder.
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  SPEAKER_00: Parliament will consider it this November.
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  SPEAKER_00: Africa has the world's highest femicide rate at 3 per 100,000 women,
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  SPEAKER_00: six times Europe's rate of 0.5 according to UN data.
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  SPEAKER_00: What American readers need to know.
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  SPEAKER_00: Four months of killings in Cameroon this year already equal a full year's toll three years ago.
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  SPEAKER_00: The country still has no law that treats killing a woman,
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  SPEAKER_00: because she is a woman, as a distinct crime.
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  SPEAKER_00: That bill has waited years for a vote it may finally get in November.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: A U.S. ban on nearly a billion dollars in Canadian imports took effect early Tuesday.
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  SPEAKER_00: The ban covers Canadian alcoholic beverages, dairy products, and motorcycles.
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  SPEAKER_00: The ban is the latest move in an escalating trade fight.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: The U.S. imposed 50% tariffs on $20 billion in Canadian goods on August 22.
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  SPEAKER_00: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney responded with matching counter-tariffs of 15%,
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  SPEAKER_00: 25%, and 50% on U.S. exports.
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  SPEAKER_00: Tuesday's ban is Washington's answer to that response.
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  SPEAKER_00: Wayne State University economist Gary Shields called the measure largely symbolic,
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  SPEAKER_00: noting it covers only about a billion dollars while we trade hundreds of billions
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  SPEAKER_00: with Canada.
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  SPEAKER_00: He described the broader approach as tit-for-tat rather than economically substantive.
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  SPEAKER_00: Oxford Economics still projects the tariffs will weaken Canadian growth into early 2027.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: Tighter financial conditions and population decline compound the effect.
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  SPEAKER_00: Translators note,
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  SPEAKER_00: Al Jazeera's coverage frames Tuesday's ban inside a longer pattern
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  SPEAKER_00: The outlet notes Trump has called Canada the 51st state
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  SPEAKER_00: while extending friendlier terms to other trading partners.
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  SPEAKER_00: It reads the ban as part of a deteriorating alliance, not ordinary tariff brinkmanship.
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  SPEAKER_00: What American readers need to know.
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  SPEAKER_00: This is a fight with one of America's closest allies, not a rival power.
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  SPEAKER_00: The products banned are the kind that show up on the ordinary receipts.
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  SPEAKER_00: The economic impact is small by design.
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  SPEAKER_00: The signal to Ottawa is the points.
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  SPEAKER_00: Finally, it is Tuesday, and that means midterm watch.
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  SPEAKER_00: Let's start with what's actually true right now, because it's genuinely good.
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  SPEAKER_00: Cook Political Report moved 15 House races towards Democrats on Friday.
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  SPEAKER_00: Managing Editor Carrie Dan said Democrats are on track to win the majority.
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  SPEAKER_00: Republicans winning a majority of the 22 toss-up races,
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  SPEAKER_00: she said, is all but impossible in practice.
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  SPEAKER_00: Democrats need a net gain of just four seats to retake the House.
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  SPEAKER_00: Cook's own range?
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  SPEAKER_00: As few as five, and as many as 15.
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  SPEAKER_00: Emerson's newest national poll,
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  SPEAKER_00: taken September 21st and 22nd,
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  SPEAKER_00: has Democrats up 11 points on the generic ballot, 53 to 42.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: Trump's approval sits at 39%, his worst of this term.
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  SPEAKER_00: 56% of voters now say he's performed worse than they expected, up from 43% in April 2025.
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  SPEAKER_00: 60% say his economic policies are hurting the country, up 14 points since April.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: Prediction markets have moved too.
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  SPEAKER_00: Polymarket had Democrats as underdogs for most of this cycle.
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  SPEAKER_00: As of September 23rd, traders put Democratic odds to win the Senate at 66%.
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  SPEAKER_00: The shift tracks competitive Republican-held seats in Alaska, Iowa, Maine, Ohio, and Texas.
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  SPEAKER_00: None of that is a vote.
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  SPEAKER_00: A poll is a snapshot of what people say when a stranger calls them.
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  SPEAKER_00: A prediction market is a bet on what other people think will happen.
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  SPEAKER_00: Neither one is what happens when a voter does or doesn't show up on
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  SPEAKER_00: a specific Tuesday and fill out a ballot.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: We've watched this movie before, three times now.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Pew Research found that 88% of national polls overstated Democratic support in 2016.
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  SPEAKER_00: That number got worse in 2020, not better.
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  SPEAKER_00: 93%.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Then 2024 followed the same pattern.
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  SPEAKER_00: When Trump won the popular vote outright and swept every swing state,
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  SPEAKER_00: most polling showed as close.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: The gap between what people tell pollsters and what they do in a voting booth isn't
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: a rounding error.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's the whole election, three cycles running.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: There's a second gap polling doesn't measure at all.
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  SPEAKER_00: A poll asks what you do.
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  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't ask whether you'll be allowed to.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: The Trump administration is running a voter eligibility database through
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: the midterms with the Supreme Court's blessing over Justice Jackson's dissent.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Brennan Center has documented the FBI being used against groups like
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: the Ohio Organizing Collaborative.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's also warning that armed federal agents have no business near polling places.
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  SPEAKER_00: None of that shows up in a generic ballot number.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: It shows up on election day, if it shows up at all.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Cook's own analysts flagged a version of the same caution from a different angle.
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  SPEAKER_00: The 15 shifted races are largely in Trump-friendly districts.
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  SPEAKER_00: Many are effectively tied,
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  SPEAKER_00: 46 to 46,
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  SPEAKER_00: with a real block of undecided voters Republicans are counting on advertising to win
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: over.
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  SPEAKER_00: The numbers are better than they've been all year.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's real.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: But it's also not enough.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's it for tonight's edition of The Rest of the World Report.
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  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for listening.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm Rudy Martinez, and I will see you all again in the mornings.