Thursday briefing: Sorry, you want how much?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/09/thursday-briefing-sorry-you-want-how-much

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Top story: Brexit ‘divorce bill’ looms

Hello, Warren Murray here, bringing you this morning’s highlights.

Theresa May heads into another awkward meeting today with fellow (for now) EU leaders. It is probably her last before Brexit talks are triggered.

Brexit itself is officially off the agenda, but indirectly on it, as the European commission threatens a £1.7bn fine against Britain over imported Chinese goods flooding through Britain and on to the continent’s black market.

France, Germany, Spain and Italy say they have lost billions in customs duties and VAT due to import-export rackets run out of the UK by criminal gangs. Any penalty could add to the potential “divorce bill” for quitting the union.

Big US investors in Britain have meanwhile warned they might take their money elsewhere if access to EU markets is not maintained. And Pret a Manger is looking at both sides of the sandwich: it has pointed out that only one in 50 of its job applicants is British – so losing the supply of EU labour is not good news – but the chain is nonetheless “excited” about the prospect of employing more British nationals in the future.

Spring budget washup – Britain’s had the budget, you’ve had a sleep, now it’s time to get to grips with it all. Here’s our breakdown of whether you can expect to be better or worse off.

Philip Hammond wanted it to be a low-key budget but a row over raising national insurance contributions for the self-employed put paid to that, with the government accused of breaking an election pledge. The last chancellor, George Osborne, presumably won’t have to worry too much about his own finances as he rakes in £650,000 working one day a week for fund manager BlackRock.

Travel ban challenge – Donald Trump is headed back to court over his latest attempt to restrict arrivals from six (previously seven) Muslim-majority countries. Hawaii is arguing that the new executive order is still the direct descendant of a “Muslim ban” and would make the state complicit in religious discrimination, as well as harming its economy. Other states are considering challenges of their own before the ban comes into effect in a week’s time.

Turbulence ahead – Airlines like Ryanair and easyJet campaigned unsuccessfully against Brexit and are now having to grapple with how they can continue operating smoothly when Britain’s skies are no longer shared with the European Union. There are fears that some routes could become unviable. Calls for a special agreement have so far fallen on deaf ears. Dame Carolyn McCall, chief executive of easyJet, says: “We don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Won’t forget this in a hurry – This sounds like clickbait but an ancient mind trick really can help you become a “memory athlete”, scientists say. Inside your “memory palace”, boring old names, faces, words and objects are mixed with vivid imagery (like “Claudia Schiffer swimming in a tub of cottage cheese”) to make them easier to recall. Neuroscientist Boris Konrad, ranked 24th in the world for remembering things, explains how it rewires the brain: “It does not make your memory capacity bigger; you use a different form of memory that already has a large capacity.”

How Greece fumbled the refugee crisis – In 2015 Greece became the EU frontline in the refugee crisis sparked by Syria’s war. The estimated £803m worth of assistance that poured in represents, per capita, the most expensive humanitarian response in history. But chaotic handling meant much of the money was wasted: while some of those in need were put up in ski chalets, others battled squalid conditions in freezing camps. This is a must-read in understanding a complex and desperate situation.

Lunchtime read: Will Fukushima ever be fixed?

It has been six years since an earthquake and tsunami sent the Japanese nuclear power station into triple meltdown. The worst such disaster since Chernobyl is far from over, with radioactive fuel unaccounted for, contaminated water leaking out, and most of the 160,000 evacuees from surrounding areas still living in exile. A succession of robots have sputtered and failed while pushing into areas where the radiation would kill a person in a minute. Our Japan correspondent, Justin McCurry, reports on a clean-up challenge that is “unprecedented and almost beyond comprehension”.

Sport

An emotional Barcelona coach Luis Enrique said he wanted to cry but “the tears won’t come out” after his side completed an absurd comeback – the greatest in Champions League history – with a 6-1 win over Paris St Germain. At the same time, former Barca coach Pep Guardiola was watching his Manchester City side miss out on the chance to go second in the Premier League with a 0-0 draw at home to Stoke City. While at the Emirates, the Arsenal hierarchy remain steadfast in their support of Arsène Wenger and believe he can pull the club out of their slump.

In other sport, the World Anti-Doping Agency is considering a move to ban the controversial drug used by Bradley Wiggins before his Tour de France victory.

Business

Oil prices are again winning the attention of the markets after a barrel of Brent crude fell by 5.8% to $53.11 on Wednesday, the biggest fall in more than a year. Although prices have perked up a little in Asian trading overnight, the sharp fall was enough to put the skids under energy stocks and other commodities with most major bourses down. Futures point to a fall of around 0.3% in the FTSE 100 at the open.

Overnight the pound was buying US$1.22 and €1.15.

The papers

The front pages are all about the budget, unsurprisingly, and some are more inventive than others.

Two tabloids excel with budget puns – the Sun’s “Spite Van Man” attacks Philip Hammond’s national insurance rise for the self-employed. The Star gets in on the same theme with “Rob The Builder”.

The Mail also is not happy: “No Laughing Matter” it booms, accusing the chancellor of “littering” his budget statement with jokes even as he broke Tory campaign promises. The Mirror takes aim at Theresa May with a picture of the PM mid-laugh. “What’s so funny prime minister?” it asks.

The Times and Telegraph are more sedate in their presentation. The former simply headlines its story “Hammond’s £2bn tax raid” while the latter follows the Mail with “Tories Break Tax Vow”.

The back pages are also pretty unanimous – the Miracle at Barcelona’s Camp Nou is the story.

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