Theruthlessprince an Atrocity Toofar?
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Trump’s Nick Clegg Themarch attack on headsto forasecond “Pocahontas” Silicon Valley referendum BEST AMERICAN POLITICS P4 TALKINGPOINTS ARTICLES P14 P20 THEWEEK 27 OCTOBER 2018 |ISSUE 1199 |£3.80 THE BESTOFTHE BRITISH AND INTERNATIONAL MEDIA Theruthlessprince An atrocity toofar? Page 2 ALL YOUNEED TO KNOWABOUT EVERYTHING THATMATTERS www.theweek.co.uk 2 NEWS The main stories… What happened What the editorials said The Saudi assassins There are “moments in history” when it’s necessary to Saudi Arabia came under mounting international overlook “heinous crimes” so as to preserve pressure over the killing of adissident Saudi “strategic alliances”, said the FT. This is not journalist this week when Turkey’s President one of them. If the US decides not to punish Erdogan confirmed leaked accounts of the its Saudi allies for this brutal killing, it will murder. Speaking publicly about the affair for do irreparable damage to its reputation as the first time, Erdogan condemned the “savage” achampion of human rights, and “invite assassination of Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi autocrats across the world to bump off their consulate this month. He described the killing as critics”, safe in the knowledge that they “political” and premeditated, but stopped short can “avert any blowback with improbable of directly implicating Saudi Arabia’s de facto alibis”. Were Britain to cut ties with Riyadh, ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman it could cost us jobs and deny us asource of (MBS). According to lurid accounts of the intelligence on terrorism, said the Daily Mail. murder leaked earlier in the week, Saudi hitmen And who knows what would follow if Western cut off Khashoggi’s fingers while he was still retaliation led to “the fall of the House of alive. Some of those involved were reportedly Saud”. Yet we have to take that risk. This members of the prince’s own security team. MBS: “difficult to dislodge” crime is too “repulsive” to “pass unavenged”. Before Erdogan’s speech, Saudi officials finally admitted that The threat of Saudi countermeasures should not deter the US, Khashoggi was murdered (having previously insisted that he said The New York Times. The Saudis are not in any position left the consulate alive). However, they claimed he was the to hit back hard: they need US technology, intelligence and victim of a“rogue operation”, for which 18 men had been arms at least as much as the US needs their business. In any arrested. President Trump accused the Saudis of conducting case, it’s not clear that MBS is an ally worth having. “The the “worst cover-up”, and said he “really wanted to believe” very possibility that the prince would order such an atrocity that MBS had not had prior knowledge of the murder. should raise questions about his stability.” What happened What the editorials said May digs in “Enough is enough,” said the Daily Mail. “Posturing” Tory rebels must stop sabotaging our crucial EU negotiations. What Theresa May assured MPs this week that the do they hope to achieve with their relentless Brexit deal is “95% settled” as she fought threats against May? Even if they ousted her, a to counter criticism of her leadership. She set new PM would face the same intractable issues out alist of areas where consensus had been and be constrained by the same “parliamentary reached, but conceded that the Irish border arithmetic”. The vicious language of the remained a“considerable sticking point”. Brexiteers is asymptom of frustration at their waning influence, said The Guardian. The The PM was the subject of furious briefings reality is that, with public doubts about Brexit over the weekend following last week’s on the rise, the hardliners are “on the run”. Brussels summit, in which she failed to achieve abreakthrough, and signalled that May’s position looks pretty secure, said The she could agree to an extension of the post- Independent. While her critics may win enough Brexit transition period beyond December support to call aconfidence vote, the chances 2020. Tory MPs were reportedly poised to are that she “would easily carry” it. The PM trigger aconfidence vote. But May’s hard-line The PM: looking secure has survived to date by “prioritising political critics later faced condemnation themselves triangulation over realism”, said The Times. for their violent language: one had suggested that May should She has appeased critics, while playing for time “in the “bring her own noose” to ameeting with backbenchers; apparent hope that alooming cliff edge in March will another had talked of her entering the “killing zone”. somehow focus minds in Brussels and among backbenchers”. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of people marched But she can’t play this game forever. It’s time to decide. in London to demand asecond Brexit vote (see page 20). “Parliament, and the public, are running out of patience.” It wasn’t all bad AScottish adventurer has Archaeologists have discovered become the fastest woman the world’s oldest intact The last surviving Bible from to cycle around the world, shipwreck, dating back 2,400 atrio produced by Benedictine completing the 18,000-mile years, at the bottom of the monks at Wearmouth-Jarrow journey in 125 days. Black Sea. The 75ft-long Ancient in the early eighth century has Jenny Graham (pictured), Greek vessel is astonishingly been returned to England for from Inverness, arrived at the well preserved: its mast is still the first time since it was sent Brandenburg Gate in Berlin last standing, and its rudders and to Rome in AD716 as agift for Thursday, where she began her rowing benches are in place. Pope Gregory II. Known as the trip in June. The 38-year-old It was found, 50 miles off the Codex Amiatinus, the huge, had cycled for 15 hours aday, coast of Bulgaria, and at adepth foot-thick book is the oldest covering an average of 156 of just over amile, by an Anglo- complete Bible in Latin. miles, unsupported and carrying Bulgarian team using aremote- Considered one of the greatest all her kit. She knocked 19 days control submarine. The ship is works of Anglo-Saxon England, off the previous record, set in believed to be atrading vessel, it now forms the centrepiece of 2014 by Italian Paola Gianotti. and is remarkably similar to the amajor new exhibition at the The men’s record is also held by aScot, Mark Beaumont. “I just set one depicted on the Siren Vase, British Library in London. out to see how far Icould go,” Graham said. “I can hardly believe it.” in the British Museum. COVER CARTOON: HOWARD MCWILLIAM THE WEEK 27 October 2018 …and how they were covered NEWS 3 What the commentators said What next? There’s a“palpable sense of panic” in the Saudi royal court, said Martin Chulov in Turkish police are still The Guardian. Saudi Arabia is used to being on the winning side in its “eternal struggle” looking for Khashoggi’s with Turkey for regional power. No longer. The release of ever more grisly evidence about body. Saudi officials say Khashoggi’s killing looks set to cause “lasting revulsion” even among the kingdom’s loyal it was passed to alocal allies. Erdogan has his enemy “right where he wants him”. It’s asweet triumph indeed, said accomplice and that they Richard Spencer in The Times. Erdogan’s goal is nothing less than leadership of the region’s don’t know its whereabouts. Sunni Muslims, arole that has traditionally gone to the Saudis as guardians of the holy Sceptics claim the Saudis mosques of Medina and Mecca. Any tarnishing of their moral authority will help his cause. can’t afford for it to be found, because it might Not that the prince is under any immediate threat at home, said The Economist. To be confirm that he was tortured. sure, MBS has arecord of “impulsive behaviour”. Look at his blockade of Qatar, and the However, they will come “abduction” of the Lebanese PM, Saad al-Hariri. In theory, his father, King Salman, could under pressure from the nominate anew crown prince: he has done so twice before. But the king is 82 and reportedly Muslim community to suffering from dementia. Many of the prince’s siblings choose to live “quietly” abroad, help locate the body, so and MBS has managed to “neutralise” both the clerical establishment and the National Guard. that Khashoggi can be Even if there is serious concern about his failings, the prince would be “difficult to dislodge”. given aproper burial. Besides, MBS can still depend on loyal friends in the White House, said Eric Swalwell in Supporters of aban on Newsweek. Trump was twice helped out by aSaudi royal when his business empire hit trouble arms sales to Saudi Arabia in the 1990s, and his son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner has fostered close ties between the are pushing for avote in administration and the prince. In fact, the Saudis know very well that all the West’s “blustering Congress. The Senate nar- moralising” will have few lasting consequences, said Tim Black on Spiked. In the last analysis, rowly rejected moves to block the US cares more about retaining Saudi support for its campaign against Iranian expansionism Trump’s $110bn arms deal than any human rights abuses: consider how Washington turned ablind eye when Saudi tanks with Riyadh last year, but helped to put down Bahrain’s Arab Spring uprising in 2011. As Trump sees it, Saudi Arabia some members are thought may be “a brutal autocracy”, but at least it’s “our brutal autocracy”. to have changed their minds. What the commentators said What next? Another summit; another round of Tory infighting; another Commons statement from May Whitehall won’t have the insisting that progress is being made –it’s all getting rather repetitive, said Stephen Bush in the infrastructure in place to New Statesman.