Top story: ‘Your silence is too high a price’
Hello – it’s Warren Murray with the news on a Friday morning.
Firstly, we have breaking news of a tsunami warning following a magnitude 8 earthquake off the coast of Mexico and Guatemala. Here’s our first take on that – we will have more details as the situation develops.
Our main story this morning: the Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu has taken the extraordinary step of criticising his fellow peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi over the bloody ethnic warfare centred on the Rohingya minority in Myanmar. “If the political price of your ascension to the highest office in Myanmar is your silence, the price is surely too steep,” says Tutu, in an open letter to the former political prisoner who is now her country’s de facto leader.
Tutu sums up the regard held for Aung San Suu Kyi by millions – “for years I had a photograph of you on my desk … you symbolised righteousness”. That high esteem, he says, has been tarnished by the acceleration of “what some have called ‘ethnic cleansing’ and others ‘a slow genocide’” in Myanmar’s Rakhine state.
“It is incongruous for a symbol of righteousness to lead such a country,” says Tutu. “We pray for you to intervene in the escalating crisis and guide your people back towards the path of righteousness again.”
Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have been displaced in a crackdown by the Burmese military, which says it is pursuing terrorists. Estimates of the death toll range from 400 to 1,000 and those fleeing have told of seeing family and friends massacred by the army. Aung San Suu Kyi has defended her muted response, saying the problems in Rakhine state are complicated and go back to pre-colonial times. In a partial bending to international criticism, she has conceded the government needs to “take care of everybody who is in our country, whether or not they are our citizens”.
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BAME suspects face hostile justice – A landmark report on race and the criminal justice system concludes it discriminates against black, Asian and minority ethnic people. The Labour MP David Lammy also delivers concrete recommendations on how to fix this. Young black people are nine times more likely to be locked up in England and Wales than their white peers, writes Lammy in his report, which was commissioned under David Cameron. Because black defendants distrust the system, they tend to plead not guilty in court – disqualifying themselves from the reduced sentences that can come with an early guilty plea. Lammy calls for deferred prosecutions where suspects can have charges dropped by completing rehabilitation; basing criminal responsibility on a suspect’s maturity rather than age; and wiping the slate clean earlier for young offenders who rehabilitate, so they can get on with finding employment. Lammy, in a column for the Guardian today, calls for urgent action to implement his recommendations.
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Hurricane’s destruction – Category 5 storm Irma has lost little of its intensity, still clocking wind speeds of 175mph as it continues to pound the Caribbean. Irma is already the longest storm of this ferocity since satellite monitoring began.
The British territories of Turks and Caicos are the latest to have been hit. At least 13 people have been confirmed dead including an infant on Barbuda, one person in Anguilla, three people in Puerto Rico, four in the US Virgin Islands, and four in the French territory of St Martin. Thousands more remain in shelters, their homes damaged or destroyed, while loss of power and water supply is widespread. South Florida has been placed on watch, with more than 750,000 people ordered to evacuate barrier islands and coastal areas, and storm surges of up to three metres possible within 48 hours. The storm is expected to descend somewhere on the Florida coast on Friday night or early Saturday local time. East of the Caribbean, Hurricane Jose has grown to category 3 and threatens some of the small islands that have barely emerged from Irma’s winds.
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Brexit challenge for PM – Theresa May is to face the first major test of her parliamentary authority on Brexit since the general election – and it is an important moment to be well read up on the internal Tory politics that are at play. The European Union withdrawal bill comes before the House of Commons on Monday, and there is alarm on both sides of the debate about the sweeping “Henry VIII” executive powers that the bill would grant ministers to bypass parliament during the Brexit process. Eurosceptic Tories who make up the powerful European Research Group (ERG), meanwhile, are to publish a letter this weekend urging the government not to “use a transition period as means of keeping the UK in the EU by stealth”. Moderate Tories say these hardcore leavers have lost their pre-election “swagger” and are paranoid that May is backing away from taking Britain out of the single market and the customs union. The letter’s signatories are being criticised for trying to lock May back into a hard Brexit.
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Bell tolls – The disgraced UK public relations firm that took money to stir up racial tensions in South Africa is predicted to be days away from collapse. Bell Pottinger could go into administration next week, say observers, after it was disavowed by the rest of the British industry and lost a string of accounts including HSBC, Investec and Clydesdale. Even “big tobacco” client Imperial Brands is reviewing its relationship. The PR firm was paid £100,000 a month by South Africa’s wealthy Gupta family – who are accused of corrupt connections to the country’s president, Jacob Zuma – and peddled lines about “white monopoly capital” and “economic apartheid” via fake Twitter accounts to draw attention away from the Guptas.
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Alcohol and cancer – The alcohol industry is mirroring the tactics of cigarette companies to play down its products’ links to cancer, especially breast and bowel cancers, researchers say. Studies have confirmed that drinkers have a higher risk, but alcohol industry-funded awareness bodies Drinkaware and the Portman Group deliberately over-emphasise other factors such as age, gender and family history in their published materials, according to a British-led international research team. The academics suggest the government should not be trusting the industry to inform the public about alcohol and cancer, but the Department of Health says it ensures the message is “clear on the links between excessive alcohol consumption and cancer”. Portman says it is presents the information “fairly, accurately and in context” so people can make their own choices, while DrinkAware argues its messages are screened by senior and independent medical experts.
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Gift of life – Eight people including five children have had their lives saved or transformed by organs transplanted from one 13-year-old British girl. Jemima Layzell died of a brain aneurysm in 2012 and her parents made the decision to donate her organs, having had a family conversation about the donor register a few weeks before her death.
Jemima’s family discovered her diaries after she died and have published them to raise money for the Jemima Layzell Trust, which helps children with brain injuries and promotes organ donation. You can read several of her touching entries in our report. The NHS hopes Jemima’s story will inspire more people to register as donors – last year 457 people died waiting for transplants and there are 6,414 on the waiting list, including 176 children.
Lunchtime read: Hacker who fought back
Lauri Love’s life changed when a UPS delivery man slapped him in handcuffs at his front door. The courier turned out to be from the National Crime Agency, and within hours the Suffolk home Lauri shared with his parents had been cleaned out of computer equipment.
Love, who doesn’t deny being a hacker, is now facing up to 99 years in a US prison. His battle against extradition from the UK is reaching its final stages. American prosecutors accuse Love of involvement in Anonymous hacks of US government websites. His supporters say the US criminal sanctions against hackers are disproportionately harsh, and used by authorities to punish online whistleblowing and activism. Love, who has Asperger’s, says he would kill himself rather than be taken to the US. “To extradite would be horrendous,” says Karen Todner, Love’s UK lawyer. “It would make a mockery of the Human Rights Act.”
Sport
Ben Stokes has spoken of his pride at recording his career-best figures with the ball after believing he had been letting the England team down this summer. But, given a wicket-laden first day during which West Indies hit back late on with four strikes themselves, the third Test remains in the balance.
Sloane Stephens will meet Madison Keys in the women’s final at the US Open after respective victories over Venus Williams and CoCo Vandeweghe at Flushing Meadows. In the men’s draw, Juan Martín del Potro is running on empty ahead of his semi-final against Rafael Nadal and will have to summon another superhuman effort after admitting he is “not in perfect condition”. And Arsène Wenger has lost faith in one of his guiding principles and called for financial fair play to be scrapped, in a major U-turn for the Arsenal manager.
Business
The big swing in the currency markets continued overnight after the European Central Bank meeting did little to support the struggling US dollar. The revitalised euro hovered near a 30-month high against the greenback, while the Chinese yuan – counter to expectations of devaluation this year – hit its highest level to the dollar in 21 months. The pound moved up to $1.313 thanks to the dollar’s woes, which are blamed on sluggish US inflation, Trump uncertainty and North Korea. On the continent, Sterling was worth €1.088. The FTSE 100 is expected to open down very slightly.
The papers
Two main themes on the fronts today: the hurricane devastating the Caribbean and Prince George’s first day at school. The Sun has both but opts for the rather parochial take on the storm: “Irma hell Brits: get us out of here.” It has the subhead “Islands flattened. Expats lost”. And a few locals as well?
The Mirror has the same stories and the same angle: “Navy’s dash to save 185mph storm Brits”. The Mail leads with: “Don’t treat us with contempt” and has found a pro-Brexit MP to say that we should leave the EU because they are not treating us well. The Times splashes on a story that a government minister is “in the firing line” after encouraging MPs to sign a letter that is designed to lock the prime minister into a hard Brexit. The FT also goes with a Brexit lead: “May’s strategy hit by Juncker and hardline MPs”.
The Telegraph has an exclusive involving the northern Ireland MP Ian Paisley Jr. The Guardian splashes on that landmark Lammy report on race and the criminal justice system.
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