Top story: Government lorded over again
Hello, it’s Warren Murray with the right things to be in the know about.
A bitter row has erupted between Brexiters and the House of Lords after it threw out a bid to give ministers, rather than parliament, sweeping control over powers brought back from Brussels. Jacob Rees-Mogg accused peers of “playing with fire” by defying the Commons – but Amnesty International said: “The Lords have sent a clear message to the Commons: leaving the EU shouldn’t mean leaving rights behind.”
The Lords vote of 349 to 221 is one of the biggest majorities against the government so far, and peers still have three more days to chip away at the bill. With a backbench debate on a customs union taking place in the Commons today, Keir Starmer has suggested Labour might seek to force the issue to a vote.
This morning we are also reporting that Ireland’s EU commissioner is urging Theresa May to face down the “immoderate ideology” of Brexiters and reconsider her position on remaining in a customs union with the EU. “Some form of customs arrangement and softening of the red lines must be in the best interest of all concerned,” Phil Hogan is expected to tell the Irish parliament’s senate.
Trump’s ‘insane’ trajectory – Emmanuel Macron has said he probably failed to persuade Donald Trump to stay in the Iran nuclear deal. The French president wants Trump to accept negotiations for a side-deal with Tehran, in return for continuing to waive sanctions. But speaking to US reporters before leaving Washington, Macron said: “My view – I don’t know what your president will decide – is that he will get rid of this deal on his own, for domestic reasons.” Trump also pulled the US out of the Paris climate change accord and Macron said such changes “can work in the short term but it’s very insane in the medium to long term”.
In an impassioned speech to Congress yesterday, Macron advocated many of the things Trump has spent much of his presidency pulling down – saying he was “sure” the US would one day return to the Paris climate change accord, and vowing that France would not abandon the nuclear deal with Iran known as the JCPOA.
Nuclear cave-in – North Korea’s nuclear test site at Punggye-ri has probably caved in beyond use from the stress of the explosions, Chinese scientists have determined. The most powerful of the North’s six nuclear device tests, on 3 September 2017, is believed to have triggered an initial big collapse followed by an “earthquake swarm” over the following days and weeks. The findings, by the scientists at the University of Science and Technology of China, may shed new light on North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s announcement that his country would cease its testing program. More below in today’s lunchtime read on tomorrow’s inter-Korean presidential summit.
‘Europe has got to wake up’ – The head of the UN World Food Programme says Isis is trying to drive a wave of immigrants from Africa’s Sahel region into fleeing to Europe with the aim of creating instability. Speaking to the Guardian in Brussels, David Beasley said lack of food was being used as a recruitment tool by the extremists. “You are going to have more Isis and extremist groups infiltrating migration … this is where the European community and international community has got to wake up.” The fact that Beasley was nominated for his job by Donald Trump might need to be taken into account here.
Tenuous Infinity War link – Well your Briefing writer has seen the latest Avengers movie now and anyone who cares surely knows the general theme. A purple giant called Thanos wants to use the Cosmic Gauntlet of Bling to wipe out life. But the social scientist Mayer Hillman has told Patrick Barkham that we have made it inevitable ourselves. “We are headed for the end of most life on the planet because we’re so dependent on the burning of fossil fuels,” he argues. Hillman, now 86, has been remarkably prescient in the past – trying to stop branch railway lines closing, explaining the environmental costs of driving children to school, and recommending energy ratings for houses, all decades before policymakers caught on. We can only survive, says Hillman, if we gear our lives towards “music and love and education and happiness. These things, which hardly use fossil fuels, are what we must focus on.”
Happy feat – A penguin has held its breath for 32.2 minutes underwater in the longest ever recorded dive by one of the birds.
Now they don’t do much else, so it would seem reasonable to assume they would get fairly good at it, and emperor penguins, one of which set the record, are the best divers. But their physiology suggests they should only be able to manage about eight minutes max. So how do they do it and what are they getting up to down there? It could be for food, or because they can’t find an opening in the Antarctic ice, says Dr Kim Goetz, but “if an animal is going deeper and expending itself and using all its oxygen to get down there, it is usually because it is worth it”.
Lunchtime read: Borderline optimism for Korea summit
The president of South Korea, Moon Jae-in, is to meet the North’s ruler, Kim Jong-un, for a historic summit on Friday at the “truce village” of Panmunjom. We are at a crucial juncture where the South has a government that wants to engage, and possibly sign a lasting peace treaty; while Kim has expressed a willingness to stop developing nuclear weapons; and Donald Trump is prepared to attend talks with the regime leader. This initial inter-Korean meeting is “like the opening move in chess”, according to one expert. Here is all you need to know about the summit.
There are keen hopes on both sides of the border, including in one unlikely quarter: North Korean defectors who just want to go home. Kim Ryon-hui sought medical treatment in China, where she says she was duped by a broker into travelling to the South. She though she could work, then return to the North, but that’s not how it works for defectors, who are made South Korean citizens and monitored by the intelligence services. There are more like her. “North Korean defectors are forever strangers in this country, classified as second-class citizens. I would never want my daughter to live this life.”
Sport
The reigning UEFA Champions League holders Real Madrid are a step closer to the final after defeating Bayern Munich 2-1 in the semi-final first leg, courtesy of goals to Marcelo and Marco Asensio. It’s not left Bayern coach Jupp Heynckes too disheartened however, with the German maintaining that his side “hurt” Madrid and that they “take hope from this”.
Meanwhile, in the NBA another LeBron James masterclass amid dramatic circumstances has helped Cleveland Cavaliers to a 3-2 series lead over the Indiana Pacers; the world athletics body has handed down new rules governing testosterone levels in female athletes that could dramatically slow competitors like Caster Semenya; and, as Kevin Mitchell writes, a tennis report revealing up to 15% of players as having had knowledge of match fixing is not a “tsunami” about to engulf the sport.
Business
Facebook has posted record revenues of $12bn for the first quarter of 2018 as it shrugged off the privacy scandal that erupted after the Cambridge Analytica revelations. Closer to home, UK car production has fallen 13% thanks to Brexit uncertainty and a slump in sales of diesel models.
It was a mixed bag across Asia-Pacific stock markets, not least in Australia where the royal commission into the financial sector continues to turn up evidence of widespread mis-selling and even criminality, sending the ASX200 into the red again. The pound was broadly flat on the currency exchanges, buying $1.394 and €1.145
The papers
“Day the tide truly turned” is the Mail’s front-page headline as it reports on supermarkets agreeing to phase out throwaway plastic. “They will be held to account,” says the Telegraph, quoting the union leader Len McCluskey as he threatens Labour MPs for targeting Jeremy Corbyn over antisemitism.
The Guardian has Amber Rudd muddying the waters over who authored the Windrush debacle as Jeremy Corbyn sheets the blame home to Theresa May. “Minister’s aide sells sex online,” says the Mirror, alleging it caught a secretary to a top Tory offering her affections on a “sugar daddy” website. “My warrior” says the Express as it speaks to Tom Evans, father of Alfie.
The Sun catches Prince William appearing to nod off at an Anzac Day service and assumes it’s to do with the new addition to the family. The FT reports that the US cable group Comcast has swooped in to make a bid for Sky – complicating things for Rupert Murdoch’s Fox and its takeover ambitions.
Sign up
The Guardian morning briefing is delivered to thousands of inboxes bright and early every weekday. If you are not already receiving it by email, make sure to subscribe.
For more news: www.theguardian.com