Amid a lack of certainty or official clarification, British Prime Minister David Cameron reacted this morning to news of the possible killing in a US drone strike of the terrorist known as “Jihadi John”.
The Guardian reports that “the debate over the legal basis for targeted killings remains confused.”
What has confused debate about the legal basis for targeted killings is that the UK’s permanent representative at the UN has given an alternative justification, explaining that the attack was justified by the right of collective self-defence of Iraq – a conflict the UK is supporting at the request of the Baghdad government. Changes to the ministerial code, which removed references of the need for ministers to respect international law, have further fuelled suspicions.
And the basis for these strikes, as well as the existence of an alleged “kill list”, is coming under scrutiny from a newly launched parliamentary inquiry.
Meanwhile..
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WORLD
ISIS, meanwhile, claimed responsibility for yesterday’s suicide bomb attacks in Beirut which killed more than 40 people.
A key meeting is scheduled for this weekend in Vienna to help decide the political future of Syria. Naturally, no Syrians are invited.
The ‘turning point’ for Donald Trump’s campaign for the Republican Presidential nomination has been predicted so often in past weeks and months that it would seem unwise to do so again. Yet the combination of three stories in the past 48 hours may indicate that a tipping point may have been reached.
https://twitter.com/TheFix/status/665015970117713920
https://twitter.com/sarahw/status/664839543187750912
https://twitter.com/TheFix/status/664977444651343872
This weekend sees the 30th anniversary of the Anglo-Irish agreement.
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BUSINESS
After yesterday’s warning by the Bank of England’s chief economist that 15million jobs could be lost to automation, there’s some number-crunching over which jobs and how soon.
The FT writes:
“Technology appears to be resulting in faster, wider and deeper degrees of hollowing-out than in the past. Why? Because 20th century machines have substituted not just for manual human tasks, but cognitive ones too. The set of human skills machines could reproduce, at lower cost, has both widened and deepened.”
Roughly 15m jobs in the UK, notably those including administrative, clerical and production tasks, could be at risk of automation, Mr Haldane said.
But he added: “To bring that down to planet earth, no one any time soon is, I think, going to choose a robot to cut their hair.”
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CULTURE
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SPORTS
The IAAF decides today whether to ban Russia as a result of this week’s WADA report on doping. But the pressure continues to build on IAAF President Lord Coe.
The Overnight Note 