Yahoo News Morning mail: Hong Kong erupts, Robodebt 2.0, the green recovery explained
Good morning, this is Richard Parkin bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Thursday 2 July.
Top stories
More than 370 people have been arrested in Hong Kong as new national security laws come into effect, with police firing teargas, pepper spray and water cannons at thousands of demonstrators. Under the laws, brought into effect on the 23rd anniversary of the territory’s handover from Britain to China, anti-government slogans could carry severe penalties, while damage of government property could lead to terrorism charges. The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, has called China’s imposition of the stricter security laws a “clear and serious” violation of its treaty with Britain, while the Guardian’s editorial has called the legislation “extraordinarily wide-ranging and frighteningly vague in its wording”.
The rolling out of “compliance checks” by the Australian Tax Office could see small business owners with newly started companies forced to pay back jobkeeper income, in a move branded “some kind of Robodebt 2.0” by one affected sole trader. Businesses founded after 1 January face seeing their $1,500-a-fortnight wage subsidies suspended, with compliance emails already being sent to small business owners from last week. An arts sector sole trader, David Geoffrey Hall, told Guardian Australia the ATO email was “super vague” with a graphic design business owner, Kate, criticising “conflicting information” from the ATO that led her to forgo jobseeker payments and draw down her super instead.
Residents of one Melbourne street have been left bemused by an “arbitrary” return to lockdown that sees one side of the road told to stay at home, and the other free to roam as Victoria tries to contain a spike in Covid-19 infections. Meanwhile, Brazil’s death toll has surpassed 60,000, on a day on which the first tourists returned to the Greek isle of Crete, and Spain and Portugal announced the reopening of their land border. More than 100 flights were scheduled to arrive around Greece, with on-arrival coronavirus tests “if considered necessary”. A UN study has estimated the global hit to the tourism industry could be as high as $3.3tn.
Australia
One in five tropical plants will face difficulties germinating by 2070, a study on global heating has found. Nearly half of tropical plants among the 1,312 seed types examined would be pushed beyond optimal reproductive conditions.
New data suggests employers are facing more applications per position advertised, contradicting “anecdotal feedback” cited this week by the prime minister that the increased rate of jobseeker payments was deterring people from looking for work.
The federal government has cancelled major defence projects including a new roll-on, roll-off wharf in Darwin and air-to-air refuellers as part of a major reprioritisation of Australia’s defensive needs.
ACT police have confirmed that inquiries are under way into allegations of sexual misconduct laid against former judge Dyson Heydon. A spokesman told media they’re taking a referral from the director of public prosecutions “very seriously” and did not rule out the possibility of federal charges.
The world
International pressure is rising over Israel’s proposed annexation of occupied Palestinian territories, with France warning of “consequences” and Boris Johnson calling any annexation a “violation of international law”.
Water companies in England discharged raw sewage into rivers on more than 200,000 occasions last year, according to data obtained by the Guardian. The analysis reveals that untreated human waste was released into streams and rivers for more than 1.5m hours in 2019.
Belgian prosecutors are contemplating charges against two suspects linked to the killing of Congo’s first democratically elected leader, almost 60 years after his assassination. Patrice Lumumba was shot in the presence of Belgian officers in 1961.
Hundreds of elephants have been found dead in Botswana in a mysterious mass die-off described by scientists as a “conservation disaster”. Conservationists have not ruled out the use of cyanide poisoning by poachers.
Recommended reads
For Tess Cullity the shock of losing her job as a children’s book editor during Covid-19 came suddenly: “I thought people would still be buying children’s books. I didn’t worry too much.” But the prospect of jobseeker payments being halved in September is “gut-wrenching” – making a cosy home a second potential casualty of the global pandemic, Luke Henriques-Gomes reports.
As accidents go, falling off a ladder is seen as something almost benign – but with 22 Australians dying from falls in 2018, and countless more enduring long-term or debilitating injuries, experts are urging older Australians to shy away from DIY. And, as Alyx Gorman writes, clinically significant deterioration in one’s quality of life often endures up to a half a year after a serious fall.
Allegations of sexual misconduct against Dyson Heydon tell a powerful story: of boys’ clubs mentalities and systemic male power and privilege that still pervade all parts of women’s lives, write Rhea Dhillon, Olivia McMillan and Sally Shera-Jones. “Men’s commitment to equality often remains hypothetical only, for when it comes to taking any meaningful steps to advocate for their colleagues, they would rather just be ‘in’ on the secret.”
Listen
It’s been a term thrown around a lot since the pandemic struck, but what could a green recovery entail in Australia? On this episode of Full Story, Guardian Australia’s environment editor, Adam Morton, examines the once-in-a-generation opportunity to realign economic and environmental goals and outcomes.
Full Story is Guardian Australia’s daily news podcast. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other podcasting app.
Sport
This season’s Super Rugby campaign is the shortest on record but it might just have the biggest impact in 25 years, writes Bret Harris. The three-month, five-team competition looks dramatically different to years gone by but could determine future trans-Tasman berths for Australia’s franchises.
Wigan Athletic have become the first English football club to go insolvent during the Covid-19 crisis, just four weeks after the club was sold to a Hong Kong-based consortium. A 12-point penalty could now force the 2013 FA Cup winners into the third tier.
A Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang double has led Arsenal to a comfortable 4-0 win over Norwich. As Barney Ronay’s match report details, the Canaries defence offered “all the resistance of a decorative bead curtain”.
Media roundup
Coronavirus protocols are being blamed for the deaths of two patients in Victoria, left in ambulances outside hospitals, the Age reports. The Victorian health minister has called for an urgent review. A leading Perth school is looking to offer students cash grants of $500 if they can improve their predicted Atar, amid fears that university offers based on year 11 results could see students “coast” through their final year, says the West Australian. And a rare 1972 Western Desert artwork will go under the hammer for the first time in Australia, with Long Jack Phillipus Tjakamarra’s work expected to fetch a record $100,000, writes the Financial Review.
Coming up
The federal court will hand down its decision on the appeal by Nationwide News against Justice Michael Wigney’s finding that the publisher defamed Geoffrey Rush.
The Senate inquiry into the federal government’s coronavirus response will hear from economists and thinktanks.
And if you’ve read this far …
Who are the worst drivers in Europe? Well, according to the French, when it comes to road rage, nobody beats them. The 10th annual poll of “responsible driving” published by the Vinci Motorway Foundation has revealed several fun titbits: the continent’s worst speeders are the Swedes, the worst horn-hitters are the Spanish, and the most dangerous? The Greeks.
Sign up
If you would like to receive the Guardian Australia morning mail to your email inbox every weekday, sign up here.
