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A cardboard cutout of Donald Trump during an anti-war protest in Washington DC. Photograph: Win McNamee/Getty Images

Friday briefing: Trump ‘maybe wasn’t tough enough’ on Kim

This article is more than 6 years old
A cardboard cutout of Donald Trump during an anti-war protest in Washington DC. Photograph: Win McNamee/Getty Images

North Korea ‘had better get their act together’ … tower blocks evacuated over fear of gas blast and collapse … and digesting clean eating’s cult status

Top story: ‘In trouble like few nations ever have been’

Good morning – Warren Murray here, capping off a week of tirades and tensions with your Friday headlines.

We were told to expect “fire and fury” if North Korea made any further threats against the US. What we got, in something of a relief, was a salvo of the verbal rather than military kind – longer, but similar in sentiment to the last one.

Kim Jong-un’s regime had promised to rain missiles into the seas around Guam, a US Pacific territory, and called Trump a “guy bereft of reason” talking “a load of nonsense”. And on Thursday, from off the fairway at his Bedminster golf resort, Trump delivered his reply: “Well I don’t think they mean that … it’s the first time they’ve heard it like they heard it.

“North Korea had better get their act together or they’re going to be in trouble like few nations ever have been in trouble in this world.” (That’s a selection – watch the video for his more extensive comments.)

Globally there is anxiety and speculation about what either of the irascible leaders might say or do next. American B-1B bombers based in Guam have reportedly made repeated rehearsals since May of a strike on North Korea. Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator close to Trump, said he was “100% confident” the president would be willing, if negotiations failed, to use military force to deny Kim the capability to mount a nuclear attack.

The secretary of defence, James Mattis, insisted the US effort remained “diplomatically led and is gaining diplomatic results. The tragedy of war is well enough known … it would be catastrophic.” Trump, at his press conference, was not buying into questions about a pre-emptive strike but said: “They’ve been doing this to our country for a long time, for many years. It’s about time somebody stuck up for the people of this country, and for the people of other countries.”


‘Death trap’ – Fears of a gas explosion and building collapse have led to hundreds of people being warned they will need to leave their tower block flats in south-east London. Residents have reacted with shock and disbelief after Southwark council shut off the gas at the Ledbury estate in Peckham, gave them electric hotplates for cooking and told them to shower at a local leisure centre. The tenants of 242 flats will have to “temporarily decant the blocks over the coming weeks and months”. During safety inspections prompted by the Grenfell disaster it was discovered the 13-storey Ledbury buildings may not have been reinforced as required after a 1968 gas blast in a similar London block caused a series of floors to collapse, killing four people and injuring 17.


Arming Maduro – The Lib Dems have called on the government to ban sales of military equipment to Venezuela – where President Nicolás Maduro’s security forces are engaged in a continuing crackdown on dissent. Government figures show £2.5m of military goods have been sold to the country since 2008. The Lib Dems said £1.2bn of British sales went in the last year to countries on a watchlist including Saudi Arabia, China, Russia, Egypt and Turkmenistan. Jeremy Corbyn has been criticised for not denouncing Maduro, and the Lib Dems’ Jo Swinson said it “smacks of double standards” for the Tories to attack Corbyn over Venezuela while the government allows British suppliers to arm numerous dictators and regimes.


Threat of ‘boyfriend’ grooming – Following the Newcastle convictions there are calls for urgent research into the abusers who lure vulnerable people into sexual exploitation. Police call it the “boyfriend model”: victims are led to think they are in a loving relationship, then passed around for sex, often while drunk or drugged. Some offenders from cases in years past have now been released and experts say their mindset needs to be understood, along with the significance of their predominantly Asian background. Nazir Afzal, the former chief prosecutor for north-west England, says answers are needed before the faltering official inquiry on child sexual abuse reports back: “In four years’ time we’ll find out what we should have been doing four years ago.”


‘Sonic attack’ in Cuba – The intrigue has deepened around cases of deafened US diplomats in Havana after Canada said at least one of its personnel was also affected. Two Cuban diplomats have been expelled from Washington after American embassy staff in Cuba and their families sustained what officials have called severe hearing loss. An advanced sonic weapon beyond the range of normal hearing was to blame, US officials suspect. Cuba’s spy apparatus is extensive, though the Cuban government has said it would never conduct or allow such an attack against diplomats. Officials familiar with the US investigation told the Associated Press that Russia or other third-party agents might be responsible.


Hashtags vs hash browns – When “clean eating” gives rise to a disease you’ve got to worry. Orthorexia nervosa is the name given to a potentially harmful obsession with a “healthy” diet. It is what happened to Jordan Younger, the “Blonde Vegan” who marketed her “gluten-free, sugar-free, oil-free, grain-free, legume-free, plant-based raw vegan” message to tens of thousands. When her hair started to fall out, she had to begin making some concessions to dietary balance. The clean eating movement persists, though, writes Bee Wilson, and has developed into a “post-truth cult” where true believers eschew food facts and detractors are trolled on social media. Too many kale smoothies can evidently do strange things to the rational mind …

Lunchtime read: Return to Calais

Amelia Gentleman brings us an important snapshot today of a humanitarian crisis on our doorstep that has not gone away. The notorious “Jungle” was demolished by French authorities last October, but this unhoused and unwanted population has resurged to more than 1,000 people living in dire conditions in the woods around Calais and Dunkirk.

Stuck at Dunkirk: Iranian family Sahid Rebaz, Yousef Rebaz, 3, Amal Muhammed, Daia Rebaz, 10, and Sardan Muhammed. Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian

Police have been taking a tough approach, confiscating sleeping bags and bedding in raids, while refugees complain of having tents slashed or being doused with CS spray. Help and comfort is limited to what charities can do, or the courts force the authorities to provide. “The [Jungle] camp was absolutely disgusting,” said one aid worker. “But at least people had some kind of home and shelter. Now they have nothing.”

Sport

At the athletics world championships, Wayde van Niekerk has said he felt upset and disrespected by his rival Isaac Makwala who suggested he was part of a conspiracy that saw the Botswana athlete excluded from the 400m final. In the 200m final, Ramil Guliyev, an Azerbaijani wearing a Turkish vest, ripped up the script to take the title, while Britain’s Laura Muir has talked up her medal chances after scraping through to the 5,000m final.

The 99th US PGA Championship is under way at Quail Hollow, and Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy, the dynamic duo who dominated pre-tournament discussion, matched opening-round scores. The Premier League returns tonight: here are 10 things to look out for in the opening round of fixtures; a Joy of Six on opening day debuts; Barney Ronay on what he really wants out of this season; and the Football Weekly team on the big kick-off. And Jonny May’s “Neymar move” from Gloucester to Leicester is further evidence of a burgeoning transfer market in rugby union.

Business

Shares plunged in the Asia-Pacific region overnight amid investor alarm at the increasingly bellicose war of words between North Korea and the US. Understandably the market in Seoul suffered the most with the Kospi index off more than 2%. In Australia, where prime minister Malcolm Turnbull pledged to join the US in any conflict, the benchmark ASX/S&P 200 index was down 1.3%. The FTSE100 is set to drop around 0.5% at the opening bell.

In the forex market, the pound was steady at $1.298 but continues to slump against the European single currency at €1.103.

The papers

A clutch of bad eggs on Friday’s front pages, ranging from the Guardian’s “suspect eggs”, via the Times’ “egg scare”, up to the i’s “toxic” and the Mail and Mirror’s “poison” eggs.

Guardian front page, 11 August 2017 Photograph: Guardian

But the Mail’s “scramble” to remove contaminated eggs from supermarket shelves fails to bump the Sun from the page one pun award, with the latter opting for a bird-catches-burglar story purely so it could headline on “Hercule Parrot”.

The Telegraph heralds calls for tougher sentences for grooming gangs; the Financial Times leads on news that Prudential is to merge its UK businesses, apparently to pave the way for an eventual split; and the Guardian’s splash is the evacuation of hundreds of residents of south London tower blocks that have failed gas safety checks.

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