Top story: ‘There are adults in the room’
Good Thursday morning to you. Warren Murray here with the knowledge you should be taking into the day.
An internal resistance is working to contain Donald Trump until he leaves or can be removed from office, according to a current White House official. “We will do what we can to steer the administration in the right direction until – one way or another – it’s over,” the aide has written anonymously in the New York Times, calling Trump amoral and prone to “half-baked, ill-informed and occasionally reckless decisions”.
You can probably guess Trump’s response – overnight he has thrown words such as “treason” and “gutless” at the author and demanded: “The Times must, for National Security purposes, turn him/her over to government at once.” The paper says it is keeping the person’s identity a closely guarded secret.
The writer reveals that aides have considered but decided against trying to remove Trump for being “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office” – which can be done without the need for impeachment. The administration’s achievements have included some “bright spots” such as deregulation and tax reform, says the author, who insists that “ours is not the popular ‘resistance’ of the left … We want the administration to succeed and think that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous. Americans should know that there are adults in the room … We fully recognize what is happening. And we are trying to do what’s right even when Donald Trump won’t.”
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Faces of the novichok attack – The Salisbury nerve agent poisoning suspects have been named by police as two operatives with Russia’s GRU spy agency who entered Britain under the names Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov. A few days before their mission, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree to outlaw the unmasking of freelancers working for Russian foreign intelligence.
Authorities have laid out a detailed trail of their movements: from arrival on Aeroflot into Gatwick airport, to a London hotel, then Salisbury and Sergei Skripal’s neighbourhood where the nerve agent was applied to his front doorknob. They were captured on CCTV at various points, and ultimately left via Heathrow airport on the evening of the day Yulia and Sergei Skripal fell ill. Here is a visual guide to their movements. At some point, say police, the Nina Ricci Premier Jour perfume container holding the novichok was discarded, and Charlie Rowley found it while rummaging through bins – a discovery that led to the death of his partner, Dawn Sturgess. In a Commons statement that by implication pointed the finger at Vladimir Putin, Theresa May said: “The GRU is a highly disciplined organisation with a well-established chain of command. So this was not a rogue operation. It was almost certainly also approved outside the GRU at a senior level of the Russian state.”
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Jerusalem reversal – Paraguay has pulled its embassy out of Jerusalem and moved it back to Tel Aviv after just three months. Paraguay’s new president, Mario Abdo Benítez, who took office last month, reviewed the choice and his foreign minister told reporters on Wednesday that the decision had been changed. Israel said it viewed the reversal with “great severity” and would close its Paraguay embassy in retaliation. Donald Trump moved the US embassy to Jerusalem in May – upending decades of consensus on Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts and leading to deadly violence.
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Mine fight goes on – The British government will release £46m in further aid for the fight against landmines after casualties started rising again. The money is to support deployment of UK-funded technology to clear mines, as well as funding the training of all-female mine clearance teams in areas where many of the men have died in conflict. Globally, deaths from landmines are at a 10-year high: “Today, one person every hour is killed by a landmine and almost half are children,” said Jane Cocking, from the Mines Advisory Group. The worst areas include Laos where there are still casualties from Vietnam war bombs, and South Sudan where civil conflict has left widespread contamination with mines and cluster bombs.
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Rich in getting-richer shocker – Almost 30,000 already very wealthy people joined the ranks of the global super-rich last year on the back of booming global stock markets. The “ultra high net worth” population – those with more than $30m (£23m) in assets – increased by 12.9% last year to a record 255,810 people, according to research firm Wealth-X. Collectively they are sitting on $31.5tn – almost double the GDP of the US. In London over the past year, rich overseas parents have bought up £2bn of property so their children can attend top schools and universities. The bank balances of many other people tell a different story – personal debt problems are gouging nearly £900m a year from the UK economy, the National Audit Office has warned. About 8.3 million people are defined as having problem debt, says the Money Advice Service, while 22% of adults have less than £100 in savings. And there are warnings that flaws in the universal credit rollout risk plunging more families into financial insecurity.
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All fluff and no sausage – Over at the Good Pub Guide, the editors are clever at finding a hook to promote their latest issue. This year they catch our attention by giving pretentious pubs a rap over the knuckles for hipster menu offerings such as carrot fluff, edible sand and fish “foam”. “Leave that to the swanky restaurants,” they exhort. “We want good, honest pub grub.” The Cock in Hemingford Grey, Cambridgeshire, wins pub of the year for its selection of real ales, wines, local cider and atmosphere. The guide also crowns its first gin pub of the year, the Cholmondeley Arms, in Cheshire, which stocks 365 different distillations. Best value pub is the Old Castle in Bridgnorth, Shropshire, where they feed you homemade classics such as fish pie, steak pie and roasted lamb shank.
Lunchtime read: China’s shocking pace of change
“After Mao’s death, the economic reforms under Deng Xiaoping brought dramatic changes to China, changes that permeated all levels of Chinese society. In a matter of 30 years we went from one extreme to another, from an era where human nature was suppressed, to an era where human impulses could run riot, from an era when politics was paramount, to an era when only money counts.”
China’s leading novelist, Yu Hua, examines what happens when a nation is transformed in a single lifetime: “In China today, Buddhist temples are crowded with worshippers, while Taoist temples are largely deserted. A few years ago, I asked a Taoist abbot: ‘Taoism is native to China, so why is it not as popular as Buddhism, which came here from abroad?’ His answer was short: ‘Buddhism has money and Taoism doesn’t.’”
Sport
Novak Djokovic has ended John Millman's US Open run to reach the semi-finals. The Serb won 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 while the Australian was praised for showing the same sort of fight with which he bested Roger Federer in the previous round. In a rematch that far outstripped their 2014 final Kei Nishikori exacted revenge on Marin Cilic to go through to the semis. Nishikori’s friend and Japanese compatriot Naomi Osaka earlier crushed a virus-stricken Lesia Tsurenko in under an hour.
Eddie Jones has warned Danny Cipriani that any further off-field transgressions will end his chances of playing in next year’s World Cup. Thomas Bjørn has issued a staunch defence of Sergio García’s inclusion in Europe’s Ryder Cup team despite admitting he felt “sick to my stomach” when informing Rafa Cabrera-Bello he had been overlooked for an appearance in France later this month. Alastair Cook expects to enter a period of mourning once his Test career comes to an end at the Oval but the opener has already ruled out being talked back into the whites of his country in future, insisting: “I have done my bit.” And the 55-nation, four-league Nations League tournament has been met with widespread confusion. What exactly is it, and should we even care?
Business
It’s groundhog day on Asia-Pacific markets where shares have fallen for the sixth straight day over concerns that the consultation period on the Trump administration’s intent to impose an additional $200m worth of tariffs on Chinese goods ends later today. The concerns are especially acute in emerging economies such as Saudi Arabia and Indonesia, where currencies are being hammered as the dollar rises.
The FTSE100 is expected to open flat, while the pound is at $1.291 and €1.11.
The papers
There is one story dominating the front pages of the papers today – the news that the novichok poisoning in Salisbury was the work of suspected Russian intelligence agents. The Guardian’s headline, over photographs of the two men, is “‘Not a rogue operation’: May accuses Putin as Skripal suspects named”.
There are headlines along a similar vein elsewhere: the Mail calls them “Putin’s smiling assassins”, the Sun’s headline is “Smiling assassins”, the Express labels the men “The smirking assassins sent by Putin” and the Mirror calls them “Putin’s assassins”.
The FT plays it with a straight bat: “Russian officers named as prime suspects in Skripal poisonings”. The Times leads with the PM’s reaction: “May vows revenge on Russia”. The Telegraph’s splash is “Russian agency behind poison attack ‘is acting with impunity’” and the i, above a photograph of the men, has the headline “Wanted”.
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