Top story: Trump changes tack to warn of ‘very severe’ consequences
Greetings, I’m Warren Murray with a selection of news in a presentation box.
The search for Jamal Khashoggi’s remains has extended to forest and farmland outside the Turkish capital, Ankara. Investigators in Turkey are said to have used CCTV footage from around the city to determine that vehicles owned by the Saudi Arabian consulate travelled to the Belgrad area in Yalova province late on 2 October, the day the US-based Saudi Arabian dissident journalist vanished. In Istanbul, gardens have been dug up and floodlights and a drone deployed in the search of the Saudi consul general’s residence.
The US president, Donald Trump, said there would have to be “very severe” consequences if suspicions proved correct that Khashoggi was murdered at the hands of the Saudis. Trump has been heavily criticised for making the US trade and security relationship with Saudi Arabia his priority, rather than justice over Khashoggi’s disappearance. Asked if he thought the Saudi exile was dead, the president told reporters: “It certainly looks that way to me. It’s very sad. It certainly looks that way.”
Liam Fox, the UK trade secretary, and the US Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, have joined key European partners in pulling out of a major economic forum in Saudi Arabia nicknamed Davos in the desert, in response to the alleged murder.
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But back to Trump – Some redemption there for the president in the eyes of the world, perhaps, but shortlived it proved to be after he last night whipped up a crowd into laughing and cheering about an attack on another journalist, Guardian US political reporter Ben Jacobs. “Any guy that can do a body slam … he’s my guy,” said Trump, referring to Greg Gianforte, the Montana politician who physically attacked Jacobs for asking questions he didn’t like.
The president has now openly and directly praised a violent act against a journalist on American soil, at a time when his administration is crucial to ensuring justice is done in the Khashoggi case. Gianforte pleaded guilty to a charge of misdemeanour assault and was sentenced to four days in jail, converted to community service, a fine and anger management training.
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Lost in transition – EU leaders might be making hopeful noises about forming a “coalition of the reasonable” to help Theresa May conclude a Brexit deal. But the PM has come under fire from both hardline leavers and remainers in her party after she foreshadowed extending the post-Brexit transition period. Donald Tusk, the European council president, and other EU leaders probably didn’t help May’s as she heads back from Brussels. They indicated they would wave through any request by the UK for a transition longer than the planned 21 months. The outspoken Conservative backbencher Johnny Mercer has called the current government a “shitshow” and said right now he would not vote for the party if he was not one of its MPs.
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‘Drug dealers’ blamed for killing – A man who died after a fight in Battersea, south London, may have been trying to see off drug dealers, his father has said. Scotland Yard launched a murder investigation after Ian Tomlin, 46, was found fatally beaten on Wednesday night near the flats where he lived. “There were always drug dealers hanging outside his home smoking – he told them to move on because his kids live there,” Tomlin’s 84-year-old father, Cecil, told the Evening Standard. Neighbours said buyers would ring all residents’ buzzers at night to get into a dealer’s flat. “He was not a violent person but he always wanted to protect his kids,” one resident said in the Telegraph.
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New scare for Taser victim – A police force that shot its own race relations adviser with a stun gun in 2017 after mistaking him for a wanted man has either once again confused him for the very same person – or, as he put it, some of its officers decided to callously “wind him up”. Judah Adunbi, a Rastafarian known as Ras Judah, said a police car pulled up alongside him in Bristol and two officers repeatedly taunted him with the name Royston McCalla. Six weeks ago the Avon and Somerset chief constable expressed regret about police shooting Adunbi in the face with a stun gun in 2017 after thinking he was McCalla. Adunbi said that in this latest encounter the police clearly knew who he was and were giggling about it. “I felt terrible. I walked home and locked my door and didn’t want to go back out.” The force said its officers drove off once they were “able to establish the man wasn’t the wanted suspect … We fully accept the man the officers spoke to wasn’t the man we’re trying to trace.”
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Space odyssey – The BepiColombo spacecraft is due to launch tonight from French Guiana on a seven-year journey to Mercury, one of the solar system’s least studied planets and the closest to the Sun. “If we want to understand our Earth and how life can [begin] on Earth and maybe on other planets we have to understand our solar system,” said Joe Zender, one of the project’s leaders. “There is one problem really … Mercury doesn’t fit.” Among the puzzles are the surprisingly high density of Mercury; the suggestion it might have a core that is still molten, when given the planet’s size it should have cooled solid by now; and its magnetic field, when it theoretically spins too slowly to generate one.
Once it goes into orbit, the European Space Agency-built Mercury Transfer Module will release Japan’s Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter and Europe’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter. In orbit around Mercury it gets to 450C on the sunny side and -180C on the dark, so the Japanese orbiter will “barbecue roll” 15 times a minute to even out the heat, while the European orbiter will use a multi-layer blanket and radiator for protection. Oh and while we’re talking space, look what just fell to Earth: our Science Weekly podcast on the case against humans going to Mars.
Lunchtime read: Do we need a holographic Amy Winehouse?
It has been announced that Amy Winehouse will return to the stage once again in 2019, touring the world in hologram form. Winehouse is not the first artist to receive the hologram treatment – there have already been such incarnations of Tupac Shakur, Maria Callas, Michael Jackson and more.
“It’s about letting people know what made her tick,” says Amy’s father, Mitch Winehouse. He feels that seven years after her death the technology can finally do his daughter justice. “Here is a chance to show the real Amy, through a hologram.” Proceeds will go to the Amy Winehouse Foundation for young people. The tour has proven divisive. For some it is a celebration of a great and much-missed musician. Others argue that an artist who loathed touring and hated fame should be allowed to rest.
Sport
Eddie Jones has claimed the England captaincy has become too big for one man after taking the surprise decision to split the role between Dylan Hartley and Owen Farrell for the autumn internationals – a move that has muddied the waters just when clarity in English rugby was needed. The Wasps director of rugby, Dai Young, has described Nathan Hughes’s six-week ban as “ridiculous” and called for an overhaul of the RFU’s disciplinary process. The search for the new director of England cricket officially starts today with Clare Connor, head of the women’s game, and Nathan Leamon, the national team’s lead analyst, two of the more eye-catching names said to be in contention.
Serena Williams’ coach says in-match coaching should be allowed in tennis to help the sport’s popularity. Scottish adventurer Jenny Graham has become the fastest woman to cycle around the world after circumnavigating the globe in 124 days, knocking nearly three weeks off the previous record. And prosecutors are to consider if two police constables should face criminal charges over the former footballer Dalian Atkinson, who died after a clash with officers.
Business
China’s economic growth has cooled to its weakest pace since the global financial crisis in the third quarter. It grew 6.5% in the third quarter from a year earlier, slower than 6.7% in the second quarter, the National Bureau of Statistics said. Analysts polled by Reuters had expected the economy to expand 6.6% in the July-September quarter.
The pound traded at $1.302 and €1.136 overnight.
The papers
The Guardian’s lead is “EU push to help May avoid no-deal Brexit”. Painting a bleaker picture are the Times (“Revolt grows over May’s handling of Brexit talks”), the Telegraph (“Tories and EU give May cold shoulder”), the FT (“May’s transition gambit draws fire from across Brexit divide”) and the i: “No deal looms after impasse in Brussels”.
The Mail says “MPs on Saudi gravy train”, as it reveals that gifts to British parliamentarians from Saudi Arabia have increased threefold in three years. The Express labels as “Disgraceful” how a second world war veteran was denied a diabetes monitor due to a postcode lottery. The Mirror reports “Hero dad is battered to death as he confronts yobs”. Edifying as ever, the Sun reports the “curse” of Strictly has struck as a cast member has split with her boyfriend.
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