Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Thursday, August 27th.

And this is your FT news briefing.

Western governments are wondering why the World Health Organization didn't visit

Wuhan during a recent trip.

EU Trade Commissioner Phil Hogan did visit Ireland and ate at a restaurant during the

pandemic. Now he's resigning. And what's the risk for U.S. oil companies when a hurricane barrels down the Gulf of Mexico?

Plus, the F.T.'s James Polidi previews a Jackson Hole Central Banker Symposium

that'll look more like a Zoom meeting

than a few days in the mountains.

I'm Mark Filipino, and here's the news you need to start your day.

A team from the World Health Organization recently returned from a three-week trip to China. The goal was to investigate the origins of coronavirus, which was first

found in the city of Wuhan.

It has Western governments wondering why this team did not visit Wuhan during the trip.

A U.S. official told the F.T. that the WHO delegation missed an opportunity to find a quote smoking gun.

A member of the Australian Parliament accused the WHO of trying to avoid offending China.

China's foreign ministry said yesterday that these concerns were totally unjustified.

The WHO said its team had remote conversations with senior scientists from the Wu Han

Institute of Virology.

And the WHO defended the trip,

saying the visit was meant to lay the groundwork

before a full international mission to investigate the virus.

But it wouldn't say whether that mission would visit Wu Han either.

...