07/04/2017 The Papers

His film appearances included The Remains of the Day

Welcome to our look ahead to what the papers will be bringing us

tomorrow. With us are Ben Hsu, economics editor of the Independent

and deputy editor of the website reaction. It's Rachel 's first time

with us. This is as shambolic as it often is! Know? Must be me. Let's

look at the front pages. Some very serious stories on the pages

tonight. We will be looking at two of them in debt. -- in depth. The

Times leads with the warning from Moscow that the United States is one

step away from military clashes with Russia. The FT has a picture of the

Stockholm attack. Its main story is Syria and what it calls the stark

shift in US strategy. The Mirror also leads with Russia's warning to

trump. The male leads on Washington 's message at the UN, that it is

ready to launch further attacks against Assad. They express also

leads on Syria, besides an image of the burning truck in Sweden. The

Guardian says the White House appears to back away from wider

military involvement in Syria, leaving the world perplexed at its

strategy. The Telegraph leads with the horror in Sweden. It says the

attack appeared to target young children deliberately.

These are the two stories that have dominated our news today. We will

begin following the fallout of those cruise missile strikes from the US.

Against that target in Idlib in Syria. I will start with the eye,

which gives over its front page to a photograph of those missiles taking

off from the destroyer. Trump 's message to the world, it says. Down

the side we have a breakdown of the various different aspects of the

story: the tensions between Russia and the US, a threat to the regimes,

not just Syria but also Iran and North Korea. How much of a message

is this? We will have to wait and see. We are hearing about a change

in strategy. I didn't think it is that clear. Trump hasn't a lot of

messages to the world since he became president but this is

obviously his first missile -based one. It's the bus one where he has

really clashed with Russia directly as a result of the fallout from what

is going to happen as a result. It is not clear what his strategy is

towards Assad himself. Busy after a regime change, is it just saying we

will not stand by in the way Obama did? When Assad previously used

chemical weapons against his own people. The message is to some

extent very clear, he is prepared to use military force. In a bigger and

perhaps more important sense, it is very unclear still. It is peculiar

that for some observers, Rachel, when Barack Obama withdrew his red

lines, Donald Trump said whatever you do, do not attack Syria and yet

here we are. -- drew his red lines. It is a complete role reversal. This

is a candidate who laughed at Obama and all sorts of mainstream

politicians at the time for taking America into a costly and Teague

said -- and as he said at the time, costly efforts overseas. Now he goes

straight in with missiles. Many John supporters who voted for him in part

because they wanted a change from the -- many trump supporters, who

wanted a change from the overseas politics. Yes, they wanted something

a bit more isolationist. We had some strong torque from many ambassadors

at the UN today. Is this just a redrawing of those red lines that

the use of chemical warfare will not be tolerated by parts of the

international community? To give trump limited credit, he said there

were red lines and when those red lines were crossed, he acted. Some

would say he was backed into a corner there. There was not much he

could do, having presented this show of strength earlier. He did have to

take action. I think what is interesting about the way the

guardian presents this is that they say the White House appeared to back

away from wider military involvement. I know other papers are

saying that this is just the beginning of further military

tensions between the US and Syria and potentially with Russia. That

mixed messaging of where this is going to lead, I think is presented

in the papers. With regard to the reaction at the UN today, Britain's

ambassador Matthew Rycroft spoke out in support. Russia said the US has

broken international law by mounting the strikes. It has done so

unilaterally and there will be grave consequences. You wonder, how many

other people will feel that Donald Trump is actually -- has actually

done everyone a favour given the UN could not get a resolution. It does

feel like d j vu because we had a similar thing in 2013 when Assad

used chemical weapons and there was, remember the House of Commons had a

vote on it and camera narrowly lost after Labour did not back it. Thanks

to Ed Miliband. Supposedly that put America off doing their own strikes

in response to this. Some unusual people are supporting Trump and what

he has done because he has reinforced a red line which they say

Obama and Cameron and Miller band and everyone, it should have done.

It has taken bizarrely and America first, isolationist, pro-Russian

American president - perceived to be pro-Russian- to actually go out and

do it. The daily Mirror takes it one step further, suggesting Trump is

now one step from war. Warning that the world is in fear. Arguably

Bevan, there are many proxy wars going on already, not just in Syria

but in Iran. There are. -- but in Iraq. Very dramatic language. Trump

himself has been very categorical in his comments on what this

represented as an atrocity. The idea that we are one step behind war, it

seems that a Russian war strip in the Black Sea has been diverted to

the method. -- warship. There is a bit of... Some headlines are getting

ahead of the fax. This is no extra regulation -- escalation in US force

will. For the Russians, they are meant to be protecting Syria. Yet

this attack has happened on one of their bases. What this really shows

is that the big players in the Syrian conflict are the US and

Russia. The Assad regime would not have survived this long if it had

not been fully support of its allies, particularly Russia. Also it

Ron. Vladimir Putin has insisted on keeping that regime. -- also Iran.

It was thought that with Trump being so cosy with Moscow, perhaps that

would not be such an issue and there would be some progress and a

geopolitical solution between those big world powers. Obviously, Trump

is a volatile person and he seems to just throw that out the window here.

He has to take the advice at some point from his defence staff and

national security staff. Relations are ruined, as Ben said. How helpful

is this to Donald Trump, given that he has been accused of being far too

close to the Kremlin. This certainly pushes them further apart? The

cynical way of looking at this action, and it is cynical is that

Donald Trump has had an abysmal couple of weeks. His ratings are

historically low for a president at that point in his term. The

investigation into Russian interference in the presidential

election has really brought up contacts between the Trump team and

Russian officials. He has been taking criticism from all sides,

even from Republicans. Suddenly he gets the opportunity here to take a

very strong stance and to, I guess, show that all the rhetoric on the

campaign trail but he could be strong and be the one to protect

America, that he can put that into action. The fact it is the complete

opposite action and he said he would do on the campaign, that does not

seem to matter to him. He is getting a taste of what it is like to have

two lead, to make decisions. When you are on the campaign trail, there

is no reality to it. Look at the Daily Mail. Trump hit Assad again.

Congress are divided on this. Some on Capitol hill are saying, we

should have been asked to authorise this. What's Trump was arguing when

he was just a rich businessman in 2013 was that Obama, if he was going

to strike Syria, needed Congress 's approval. He has obviously done it

without Congress 's approval. The reality is very different when you

are in a position of power. What is interesting despite the fact he did

not go through Congress algae UN, is that he did seem to do it relatively

by the book. -- Congress or the UN. He informed Russia. He did tell

people what he was going to do. Which is actually somewhat out of

character for Trump. You know how impulsive he is and how many things

he has done not by the book. Do you think that implies he was taking

advice? He probably had some advice. We must mention there has been a

very important visitor trying to get Trump's attention. Ordinarily we

would be talking about the Chinese president meeting Trump and not

getting a look in. No, actually that is a crucial meeting for America.

China is in some ways America's most important bilateral ally. They were

going to talk about North Korea and some of the trade issues that have

been very close to Donald Trump's heart. This has been completely

overshadowed by what has been going on in Syria. The response of China

to the US strikes is actually really interesting. They did not come out

and condemn it quite as much as Russia did, but they did speak

against America's use of force. It's not like Trump is sitting there in

his golf resort in Florida, with an ally on this. That is actually quite

intense relationship right now. The Times has an headline saying Xi

Jinping loses face. I think it would sue China pretty well to have this,

because they do not want a big row with Donald Trump about trade. They

want to get on with things and not talk about North Korea. They want a

state visit that looks good because that's what plays well in the

Chinese media. Let's go to the Telegraph and talk about the other

big story of the day, this truck attack in Stockholm. Still a great

deal of confusion about who the person or people who are responsible

are. Two people have been asked questions was arrested. -- and one

was arrested. 15 injured, four dead. We do not know a lot at this stage

but what we do know is that it is the fourth vehicle -based attack on

civilians in European cities in under a year. Let's show the

headline on the Daily Telegraph. People spoke of the men's speed with

which he drove down the street. -- the immense speed. A lorry that had

been stolen earlier in the day from Newbury. They highlight -- from a

brewery. It seems to be that they targeted children. Infants by these

were sent flying through the air. Some horrific images there. As Ben

said, this is not the first time we have seen an attack of this kind of

nature. I also, reading it, I thought... This is slightly

flippant, but this is something Donald Trump almost predicted a few

months ago where he made a comment about what is going on in Sweden and

obviously there was nothing going on in Sweden at the time. I think it is

tragic that two months after that, he is alternative fact is, at the

time, have come true. The Daily Mail also has the story, using a picture

the police issued of a man they wanted to question. They were

questioning someone who resembled the man in this picture. Is this the

face of a terrorist? We don't know yet. There are some suggestions the

arrested place after the man now in custody had taken a train out of

Stockholm. The question is, what was the purpose of this attack? Whether

it is in fact, a terrorist incident. If it is terrorism, how do you go

about defending yourself against this kind of low-tech, horrific as

it is, it is not very sophisticated kind of attack. The perpetrator

seems to just have hijacked a lorry and driven it at people from not

very far away. Very difficult to defend against. You can't begrudge

barriers in every single high Street on the world. -- you can't put crash

barriers on every high street. Some experts saying it was only a matter

of time until it happened in Sweden, despite its appearing very safe.

Reports were saying that the intelligence has been there but the

legislative framework has not. Extremism in Sweden which is

considered a very tolerant and open country has been rising. I think it

is interesting that this attack took place actually close to the scene of

the last terror attack, or attempted terror attack in Sweden in 2010.

Thankfully that was a suicide bomber who did not manage to injure anyone

other than himself. This tension has been brewing for a while. In terms

of defending against it, it was the Daily Mail who after the Westminster

attack, of a similar nature, put forward a spread saying, we found

instructions of how you can use a car or truck to kill people. I was

thinking, you don't need instructions for that. It's obvious.

Anyone has these tools. That's what makes it so difficult to defend

against. That's it for the papers for tonight. Just the two stories

dominating the headlines of course. Don't forget you can see me from

pages online on the BBC News website. There are seven days a

week. If you mist the programme, you can watch it later on I play. I hope

you will come back, Rachel! You have taken to it very readily, hasn't

she, then? Thank you very much, both. Coming up next: the weather.