Yahoo News Morning mail: strip-search figures revealed, UN climate talks begin, Cradle Mountain magic
Good morning, this is Helen Sullivan bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Monday 9 December.
Top stories
More than 300 school-age boys have been strip-searched by the NSW police in the past three years. As police and the state government come under increasing pressure to reform the use of strip-searching amid evidence of its widespread misuse, Guardian Australia can reveal that since 2016 police have forced 344 boys between the ages of 11 and 17 to submit to the controversial practice. Of most concern, the figures, obtained by the Redfern Legal Centre under freedom of information laws, show that one 11-year old, one 12-year-old and four 13-year-old boys have been strip-searched since 2016.
Facebook is telling users that Islamophobic posts distributed through a network of far-right pages meet its “community standards”, despite revelations they are being used as part of a coordinated scheme profiting from hate and disinformation. Guardian Australia revealed on Friday that an Israel-based group had gained access to at least 21 far-right Facebook pages with vast followings across the western world. The pages were used to coordinate the distribution of more than a thousand “news” posts each week to more than 1 million followers, spreading disinformation and hate targeting Muslims, promoting far-right politicians and vilifying prominent Muslim politicians.
Hundreds of thousands of protesters have filled the streets of Hong Kong in a mass show of support for the anti-government movement entering its seventh month. The march was mostly peaceful, in a rare break from escalating violent scenes. It was the first time in nearly four months that the march organiser, Civil Human Rights Front, had been given police permission for a mass demonstration. The organiser of million-strong marches in June estimated that 800,000 people took part. Police said 183,000 had turned up.
Australia
Australia is at risk of becoming a dumping ground for cars pre-charged with a greenhouse gas 1,400 times more potent than carbon dioxide, industry groups warn. The culprit is refrigerant used in car air-conditioning systems known as HFC-134a, a gas introduced to replace ozone-depleting gases that were phased out in the 90s, but which has since been banned in the US and EU.
Firefighters have taken advantage of less extreme conditions to try to contain blazes burning across NSW ahead of worsening conditions and soaring temperatures expected on Tuesday.
Senior ministers have continued to downplay suggestions the government could accept the New Zealand offer to resettle refugees in offshore detention, amid ongoing speculation about the terms of an arrangement made with the Senate crossbencher Jacqui Lambie.
The proportion of voters nominating global warming and the environment as their top issue is at an all-time high, and helped Labor win votes at the May 2019 election despite its shock loss, according to the Australian National University’s election survey, released on Monday.
The world
Urgent UN talks on tackling the climate emergency are still not addressing the true scale of the crisis, one of the world’s leading climate scientists has warned, as high-ranking ministers from governments around the world began to arrive in Madrid for the final days of negotiations.
The Democratic chairman of the House judiciary committee, Jerry Nadler, may include evidence from the Mueller report in articles of impeachment against Donald Trump. The impeachment articles could be published as early as next week. Meanwhile the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, faces a major test at a high-stakes summit with Vladimir Putin in Paris.
The UK’s shadow chancellor has expressed his concern that the row over antisemitism in Labour may have an effect on the British election result, adding that the party had “done everything we can possibly do” to tackle the problem.
A fire has swept through a market in Delhi, killing at least 43 people and prompting an outpouring of grief and anger.
Carroll Spinney, who played Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch on Sesame Street for nearly 50 years, has died. He was 85. He voiced and operated Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch until he was into his 80s.
Recommended reads
Tasmania’s Overland Track offers sun, snow and glory in a wild and wondrous place, writes Nikki Marshall. “The trail from Cradle Valley to Lake St Clair takes hikers across alpine plateaus, where wildflowers peep out below snowdrifts, through moors dotted with buttongrass and grazing wombats, and into majestic myrtle beech rainforests. It’s bucket-list beautiful.”
Few actors could be said to have dominated a year as much as Adam Driver. “The 36-year-old began 2019 with a best supporting actor Oscar nomination for BlacKkKlansman and will end it as the star of three of the year’s most talked-about movies – The Report, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and Marriage Story,” writes Sarah Hughes. “His pecs appeal is regularly debated online while a writer on US website the Cut became ‘so flustered by his quads [in Burn This] that … I spilled all of the contents of my purse on the floor’. No wonder then that he is increasingly hailed as Hollywood’s latest, if most unlikely, heartthrob.”
Listen
Did you know that there were state-sanctioned massacres of Indigenous people as recently as 1928? These stories, and many more, have been hidden and denied for generations but that’s beginning to change. In this episode of the Full Story podcast we unpack how these massacres took place around the country and explore how one community is continuing to grapple with this violence.
Sport
Brisbane Heat have claimed back-to-back WBBL titles, defeating Adelaide Strikers by six wickets in Sunday’s final at a sold-out Allan Border Field.
Matt Jones held his nerve to claim his second Australian Open. Jones proved a worthy recipient of the Stonehaven Cup at an Australian Open overshadowed by Sydney’s bushfires, writes Matt Cleary.
It is a good thing for Jürgen Klopp that Liverpool keep winning, because so do their most impressive rivals, writes Paul Doyle, as Leicester City beat Aston Villa 4-1, sweeping to their eighth league victory in a row – their best streak in the top flight.
Media roundup
Anthony Albanese has come out in support of Australian coal exports in an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age. The Herald also reveals that the Berejiklian government may scrap the Murray-Darling water agreement. The Australian’s Newspoll shows the Coalition with a two-party-preferred vote of 52-48 over Labor. “Former High Court judge and royal commissioner Kenneth Hayne has warned directors they have a legal duty to act on climate change risk,” the Australian Financial Review reports.
Coming up
Icac’s inquiry into political donations to the NSW Labor party resumes in Sydney.
And if you’ve read this far …
If Jared Kushner cannot achieve peace between Israel and the Palestinians, Donald Trump claimed on Saturday, “it can’t be done”.
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