to the la times new and a big story out of the us. the trump admistration's ramping up the trade war with china, according to the paper, by releasing a long list of imports that could soon be hit by 25% tariffs. the guardian in the uk with a report on the rise of robots. research in the paper says 66 millionjobs in the developed world could be lost to automation and employers aren't doing enough to prepare their people. to the main story of the financial times, spotify with something to sing about — its $30 billion debut that saw the music streaming company defy the current tech stock sell—off. and finally, the independent among many outlets looking back at martin luther king jr on the 50th anniversary of his death, but pointing out he was more radical than most people remember. 0k, let's begin. with me is nina trentmann from the wall streetjournal. let's get straight into it's take on

the porton down delivery of its verdict. they are certain that this is novichok but at the moment, they're not saying where it came from. is not clear the moment where the nerve agent, which was confirmed as novichok, came from and this does raise the question of whether the uk government was too quick in accusing russia of involvement in that attack and also then having evicted russian diplomats from the uk, which then also was followed by similar action in the us and also then by one in russia. of course, it remains to be seen. rt is sponsored by the russian government, so a certain take on that. it can read between the lines here because of course, again, they are making the claim that russia has again denied any involvement in the poisoning and has offered its assistance to clear this up, so of

course this is sort of a russian perspective on the. very much so, but it is interesting. i was reading the times, the british times newspaper, they use the phrase damage limitation as a result of the porton down statement. there would have been a hope at least that this could be nailed down now and that is simply not the case. yeah, for a british government and foreign office perspective, they will be hoping that porton down could say that this came out of laboratory in russia, that porton down did not provide the yes, it could be seen as some sort of damage control. it will be interesting to see what else comes out of it. will that ever be over? that the turnout was story which is certainly not over at the moment, but the ramping up of the try administration at the moment of the tariffs, or at least the list of possible products for tariffs from

china. it is a long list. yeah, is a big list. i was expecting number is similarto big list. i was expecting number is similar to that, i was not surprised. interestingly, there are a number of items that china is attempting to sell not only in the us but also in other markets, jet engines, technology products, cars, not so much products that would affect the us consumer and the us government has said that they are trying to list things that would hit china but not necessarily the american consumer and now, of course, it remains to be seen how far there is some negotiation between the two. there is a hearing in may for parties to present their views on this before the tariffs become effective. and this is why, certainly it is in the la times and other papers as well, this reference to brinkmanship. there is a long period before anything will kick in and the sort of general feeling i

get that they expect them to sort this, rather than going to a full—scale trade war. would that seem a full—scale trade war. would that seem a reasonable supposition?” can, of course, while the try administration said yesterday that they are willing to negotiate and this is not a done deal, the us has a time criticised the obligation in china for requiring foreign companies too, if they set up shop in china for the first time, two in most cases set up a joint venture with a chinese company and also requiring them to share intellectual property, which the us is saying is causing this distorted relationship between the two and is also harming us companies. china has been criticised this rule for a long time also by other countries, i'm not expecting them to make drastic changes there because it has been a very successful model for china to the past 20 years but at least there is room for negotiation between the two. and interestingly, the la times has worked on the sort of wheels

within wheels here, trump saying the, you push hard on north korea over its nuclear programme and maybe we will find ways to make this less painful, but the view from the paper seems to be actually, maybe the shoe is on the other foot now. that the chinese can say hang on, you need us to north korea, so we have got the upper hand here. of course, with mr trump set to meet the north korean government later this spring, of course there is something with the chinese can also demand from the us side. in the end, this is not black and white and this is actually, i guess that is quite a good way of ringing in the north korea example because it is notjust that the us wa nts because it is notjust that the us wants or can say well, china is our market, do this or you cannot export here or we will slap tariffs on you, but the us is also exporting into china and southeast asia, and especially that in north korea, s0... especially that in north korea, so... it is the complexity of it, isn't it? because none of us will

have to work soon, according to the guardian. quoting the oecd, 66% of jobs can go thanks to the robot. i know this is close to heart, you have been writing a lot about it the wall streetjournal. a fascinating piece, how different countries are more or less set to these kinds of issues. you imagine this is across the board, far from issues. you imagine this is across the board, farfrom it. issues. you imagine this is across the board, far from it. yeah, a red that 35% ofjobs in slovakia are highly automated, this is only the case with 6% ofjobs in norway. which goes to show that depending on how digitalised and advance the economy is in a particular country, there is a higher or lower risk. i think now there is this question of how the government and also then companies deal with this issue? because automation is coming and it brings advantages for companies, as i wrote yesterday in the wall street journal, where companies are trying

to boost the efficiencies of departments, not always to reduce jobs but to make better use of their people, but which in a lot of ways would lead to the reduction injobs, especially the lower skilled, manual tasks and then leads to a question of what we doing with these people? and what do these people want to do? i was interested to see that germany is one of the countries where they could be a lot more automation, and for our british audiences, one of the least affected by automation. i suppose if you're wanting to hold onto yourjob, that is probably good news, uk perspective. let's move on to the news about spotify, that the natural times giving the company very big billing. what you think it has so well, do you think? a good question, it definitely comes at a time when people were expecting a much rockier first trading time when people were expecting a much rockierfirst trading day yesterday. spotify was yesterday, in a letter, saying do not pay too much attention to yesterday's trading,

because they were expecting that the timing of the direct listing could be bad because of that sell—off in tech stock that you mentioned before. a nosedive. it is an interesting company, they have a huge market share in that music streaming market, double the amount of market share that, for example, apple has but it still does not make, they are still not profitable, s0 make, they are still not profitable, so of course that is one of the questions that the company now does have two tackle because being a listed company, even though they did not go through an official, initial public offering that went through a direct listing, which was a bit of a direct listing, which was a bit of a direct case, they are now under much more scrutiny in terms of providing investors with updates on their profitability. yeah, well, we're going to end with the independent, which is focusing on a big anniversary. if the years since the death of martin luther king. interestingly, taking a view that if

you reflected on how radical he was at the time, compared to perhaps the slightly warmer hue that people see him in the day, different picture. yeah, it is quite interesting. i did not know that martin luther king was a criticism of capitalism in many insta nces, a criticism of capitalism in many instances, and also that there is many elements of his work that had been forgotten or are no longer reported. i guess it is always interesting to see how people change once they are dead. there is one person quoted here saying that doctor king would no doubt be surprised to find out how popular he has become since he was buried. so the stories making a case that if he was still alive, he would not be in the same position. is certainly popular. in the very much indeed as a lwa ys popular. in the very much indeed as always for that, focusing on the papers. —— years. i'mjust always for that, focusing on the papers. —— years. i'm just going to close one other twit we have had in, doctor king is still showing us all the way. leaders like him elevate all of us. well, i think wednesday is going to be one of those days with pretty spectacular cloudscape —

and thunder and lightning and downpours as well. not everybody‘s going to get the thunder and lightning but if you do get a downpour, you might even get hail as well and some gusty winds. so some pretty rough weather on the way. in between, there will be lots of fine weather too. this low pressure has been swinging around for a couple of days here, just off the coast of the british isles. as far as the night's concerned, still some snow falling across the highlands of scotland. we've got the cold weather in place here. the rest of the country, particularly around western and south—western areas, that's where we'll get the showers. the low pressure will be sitting on top of the uk and that's going to be spawning the showers, but not everywhere. the thinking is that in the morning some of us will actually have a lot of sunny weather, but look at those showers go across much of wales, much of england as well, but in the north, it's a different story. in scotland, we are in fact expecting fine weather in the very far north—west.

then we have a band of snow across the highlands, possibly some sleet across the lowlands, but look at that, in the south, you've got basically a massive rush of showers and some of these will bring hail and thunder, but there'll be lots of sunshine in between as well. eventually, that thundery area of low pressure and downpours moves away towards scandinavia. the weather opens up a little bit, we get this window of fine weather. on thurday, chilly start, there could be some frost around in places early in the morning. the sun's out and it's looking fine. because it could be a chilly start on thursday, those temperatures will struggle a little bit. we're talking about ten to 12 degress celsius. thursday, friday, yet another low pressure swings off the atlantic. that is expected to bring rain to western areas of the uk but look at the winds, they're coming out of the south. that is a mild direction. coming out of the south. that means that particularly where the sun comes up, temperatures will be rising.

we could be talking about 15, 16 degrees on friday, whereas in the west, we have rain. as far as the rest of the week is concerned, we will continue to see that milder air coming out of the west at some point, temperatures could get up to 17, maybe even 18 degrees in the extreme south—east. bye— bye. hello, this is breakfast, with charlie stayt and naga munchetty. deadline day for big businesses to report on their gender pay gaps. by midnight, all companies with more than 250 employees have to report the difference between how much they pay men and women more than 8,000 have given their details so far. 78% are paying men more than women. i'll have all the details. good morning, it's wednesday the fourth of april. also this morning:

a second death from violence on london's streets in two days. a 16—year—old boy shot on monday night dies of his wounds. russia puts pressure on the uk to share more information