Raab: Good Friday Agreement Not In Jeopardy; Wyndham CEO: U.S. Franchisees.
RICHARD QUEST, CNN INTERNATIONAL HOST: Hello, I'm Richard Quest. There's more QUEST MEANS BUSINESS in just a moment. The Chief Executive of Wyndham Hotels will be with us. You heard earlier in the program, talking about how the hospitality industry is being so badly hit, and it means will help airlines, as well. What does Wyndham Hotel CEO see in the markets at the moment? And Qantas, and it is an offer for AV geeks the world over. The flight that goes to nowhere and it's already sold out. I'll give you the details of that in just a moment after the news headlines because this is CNN, and on this network, the news always comes first. The World Health Organization says a very serious situation is unfolding across Europe, as coronavirus cases rise dramatically. The regional directors warning there are more infections now than during the peak in March while the lockdown in spring and summer pushed cases to an all-time low. The continent has been easing restrictions and reopening economies. Aides to the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny says he was poisoned in a hotel room in Siberia last month, not at the airport as initially thought. They say traces of Novichok have been found on a water bottle that was taken from his room shortly after he became critically ill. The FBI Director Christopher Wray says Russia is actively interfering in the U.S. election. He testified before a House committee on Thursday. Wray said Moscow's main goal is to denigrate Joe Biden, and that Russia is using social media proxies, state media, and online journals to sow divisiveness and discord. The U.K. Foreign Secretary speaking to CNN has said that the U.K. will uphold its commitments under the Good Friday Agreement. Joe Biden had tweeted and I quote, "We can't allow the Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland to become a casualty of Brexit. Any trade deal between the U.S. and U.K. must be contingent upon respect for the agreement and preventing the return of a hard border, period." The same position as Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker. The Foreign Minister, Dominic Raab, told CNN's Brianna Keilar, the Belfast Agreement is safe.</s>DOMINIC RAAB, SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN, COMMONWEALTH AND DEVELOPMENT AFFAIRS: First of all, the Good Friday Agreement is not in jeopardy.</s>QUEST: Nic Robertson is with me, and why does -- Nic, why does Joe Biden's intervention -- why does it matter? I mean, yes, he might. He could well be the next president, but the U.K. said that there'll be no border on the island of Ireland.</s>NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, and the Irish would take exception to that, as have European Union politicians who said if Britain does go ahead and introduce and pass its Internal Market Bill, which is the thing that could well as already been admitted by a British ministers to be breaking the international law. The withdrawal agreement that Britain struck was sort of divorced part of the Brexit deal that the European Union will potentially take them to court and consider fines. The sort of the default is if that section the Northern Ireland protocol, part of withdrawal agreement gets broken by this legislation. The implication is that it would so damage the Brexit process itself, that there would by default, arrive a hard border on the border between the North Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland to the south. That, in itself, would be fuel enough to rekindle the embers which haven't gone out of the conflict that plagued Northern Ireland for more than three decades. And so, that's the root of this. One thing begets another begets another. And the British say, yes, they want to uphold the Good Friday Agreement. But why does it matter when Joe Biden weighs in? Because his real -- this is -- this is a war. Again, Britain has had one for the European Union, and now one from potentially the next U.S. president, certainly for the Democrats, who have the power to slow down and hinder a free trade agreement with the</s>U.K. QUEST: Right. Nic, if we look at the measures that the British government has now put forward to appease its own backbenchers, which some say is not enough. And we listened to what the Prime Minister said, is it true, Nic, that Europe was trying to get an overarching reach back into the United Kingdom through an interpretation of the withdrawal agreement?</s>ROBERTSON: So, essentially, we're talking here about state aid and the European Union potentially having reached back to affect state aid within the United Kingdom. And that's a very real concern in the U.K. There's a sense that, you know, on the British side that they want to be able to give state aid to businesses potentially in the north of the country, where they're talking about leveling the playing field, bringing up the sort of economy of the north of -- the north of England to be on a better par with the South. Now, the European Union is very sensitive about state aid because if there is -- if Britain is outside the European Union, outside of the control of European Union regulations on state aid, there's the feeling would be therefore that Britain would be able to fund some of its businesses at the expense of European businesses. Have unfair competitive advantage. So, that's --</s>QUEST: Right.</s>ROBERTSON: These are genuine concerns on both sides. However, the withdrawal agreement and the Northern Ireland protocols that Boris Johnson signed last year and then went into an election that he won handily in the U.K., based on that, that was all about securing the Good Friday Agreement as well as the Brexit divorce deal. It was torturously detailed. It had brought down Theresa May. And the detail of it, Boris Johnson signed up to on the Europeans' understanding that he knew what it meant top to bottom.</s>QUEST: Which apparently didn't mean exactly what he thought it meant. Nic Robertson, thank you. Now, the Whole Foods' chief executive says capitalism is on the brink of a new era. But as we go through COVID, one has to question what that era is. The CEO is with me after the break with his new book.