Gen Z protests, Oleshky and a possible Democratic Congress

Hi, I'm Tara Oaks in the book Paul. It's Sunday, November 1st. Today, protests spread across Europe with scuffles and looting in Germany. Starved residents of Oleschi return to Ukraine during a rare local ceasefire. How the Trump White House is planning to govern without Congress if Democrats triumph in the midterms. And Chinese beauty brands are trying to go local. This is World News bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes seven days a week. Scuffles between police and protesters as projectiles and firecrackers are thrown and lines of demonstrators are pushed back with batons. Whilst we're in town, looters smash shop windows and make off with the goods. In Paris, a third weekend of protests was some taking to the streets in Halloween costumes. But those opening scenes aren't from the French capital, but Germany's financial hub are Frankfurt. And protests across Germany were organized by the campaign group Gen Z takes charge, which says it opposes compulsory military service on one's greater investment in education. The latter issue aligned with what sparked the current protest movement in France. The world part of a wave of so-called Gen Z protests that have swept across European countries, including Serbia, Italy and Albania, driven by grievances including the cost of living and perceived corruption, as well as the poor state of schools. But who are some of the protesters involved? That's Kiara, a 21-year-old student in protest hit Milan. She's not alone in her feelings. Sika Kerti is a 19-year-old architecture student in Albania. At times, the protests have triggered violence, with thousands of shops in France alone damaged or looted in recent weeks, and police firing stung grenades and water cannon. Milan's GC is just 17, and has been protesting against what he calls deplorable conditions at his school in a Paris suburb, including staff shortages and rats. He says he condemns both the police violence and the looting scene in some protests, because the images of violence high demands that are, quote, "completely legitimate." Starving residents of a Russian-held town in southern Ukraine have begun evacuating. Part of a joint relief operation between the two warring sides, and the first of its kind, more than four years of war. Sisters Daria and Yelizaveta Pali embracing the father Mikhailo, who arrived by bus in Ukraine on Saturday. Yelizaveta saying they were getting ready to cook him a proper meal. Supply routes to Alashky were disrupted by fighting and drones. According to some residents, food deliveries were stopped months ago, pushing hundreds of people into starvation. The six day local ceasefire was reached after mediation efforts by U.S. First Lady Melania Trump, and with the Pope's involvement. It's the longest local pause in fighting since Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022. Elena Harmasch has been following the story from Kiev. So far, it's been upheld without breaches of violations, which is quite unusual also during this war, and the such long ceasefire was required because the evacuation operation is actually being implemented in stages, and they started with the mining rolls, and it took several days. To reach Ukrainian health territory, Alashky residents had to take a complicated route. First traveling by bus via Crimea to the Russian town of Anapa, before flying to Belarus from where they continued to Ukraine. In a video shared by Ukraine's ombudsman, many evacuees were elderly. Some required help to walk, and a few were carried in on stretches or in wheelchairs. Over weekend, we interviewed a family of three people who said that for weeks, the three of them, they've been surviving on just splitting between themselves just one cup of rice or buckwheat. The operation is raising hopes of broader diplomatic progress. Some analysts in Ukraine are saying that this operation was needed to keep U.S. President Trump in a happy state ahead of the midterms, but if we look at the broader picture, on the Ukrainian side, some officials are saying that it can become an example for broader escalation. But if we look at what Russian officials are saying, Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Piskov, he said that this is a special case, which is very difficult to extrapolate to kind of broader peace talks on how to end the war. As Democrats head into Tuesday's midterms elections with a chance to take Congress, the Trump White House is already planning for what comes next. Reuters has learnt that senior aides have spent months identifying what Trump could still do without Congress. What are the things that Trump can really legally do on his own, where he could push the limits of his authority? And we've seen that since the start of his second term, he's really pushed the limits on executive authority and the actions he's taken based on that. And how they can defend these decisions in court, so they're also reaching out to the Justice Department for their help with legal opinions and their help with defending some of these things. So to say, the idea has been reviewed on new tariffs, tighter visa rules, and executive actions aimed at lowering housing and construction costs. The planning underscores a central paradox of these elections. If Democrats take control of Congress, they could investigate President Trump, block legislation and push back on his spending priorities. That only goes so far. Trump would keep broad executive power, shaping trade and foreign policy and directing the federal bureaucracy. We've seen him in both national emergencies were trade and immigration and foreign policy, and Congress can vote to end those emergencies, but Trump can obviously veto such a move. It requires two-thirds majorities in both chambers to override him. Democrats are unlikely to have such a vote. So that's going to be a potent tool in the President's toolkit as he deals with Democrats. And finally, after the success of Korean skincare abroad, Chinese beauty brands are planning to step out onto a global market. Prior cosmetics, the largest sea beauty brand by revenue, is coming to stores in the US this month after the rapid rise of sales of domestic products at home over the past decade. Shanghai Bureau Chief Casey Hall has been speaking to brand executives about the move to go global. They said that now is the right time for them to make this push overseas because they're talking to foreign partners, they're talking to foreign people and all of those foreign partners are talking about Chinese EVs, they're talking about Chinese AI, they're talking about Chinese electronics and Chinese innovation. And so that's given the executives the kind of confidence that their Chinese brands will be accepted by the international market at this point in time, which I found really interesting. I wasn't expecting the kind of halo-effective EVs to be so important to the beauty market. And all those other markets have had to navigate trade and geopolitical tensions. Casey says it might be different for sea beauty. Those that have been selling already in the US market for some time were pretty clear about saying their customers are not the kind of people who are going to be influenced by geopolitics in terms of what beauty products they buy. They're more likely to be influenced by something cool that they see on TikTok. They're likely to be a really kind of international customer, someone who's well-traveled, someone who's really interested in new and different kind of skincare and beauty products. And that I think makes it a little bit easier for beauty as a category. For more on any of the stories from today as well as more analysis and news shaping our world, check out Rooters.com or the Rooters app. There's a link in the description to download it and start getting pure news straight from this source. don't forget to follow us on your favourite podcast player. If you're listening on a smartspeaker, just ask for the latest news from Reuters seven days a week. We'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show.