Good morning, this is Richard Parkin bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Thursday 11 June.
Top stories
Mining giant BHP stands poised to destroy as many as 86 significant Aboriginal sites in the Pilbara, just one week after a senior executive from Rio Tinto apologised for the company’s destruction of a 46,000-year-old Aboriginal site. In documents seen by Guardian Australia, a BHP archaeological survey identified rock shelters that were occupied between 10,000 and 15,000 years ago, but in accordance with section 18 of the Western Australian Aboriginal Heritage Act, the traditional owners, the Banjima people, were unable to lodge objections or to prevent their sacred sites from being damaged. Rio Tinto had received ministerial consent under WA legislation to destroy the nearby Juukan Gorge in 2013, but the approval for BHP’s $4.5bn South Flank expansion by the Western Australian minister for Aboriginal affairs, Ben Wyatt, came just days after the explosion of the Juukan Gorge garnered global headlines.
The European Union has accused China of orchestrating a “huge wave” of disinformation about coronavirus. Commission vice president, Vĕra Jourová, told reporters the EU should not “shy away from naming and shaming”, listing China alongside Russia in creating and spreading “a surge in narratives undermining our democracies and in effect our response to the crisis”. The EU commission also issued an implicit rebuke to US president Donald Trump, noting the potentially harmful effects of his suggestions about injecting bleach to treat Covid-19. Elsewhere, an OECD report has found that the UK’s economy is likely to suffer the most severe contraction of any developed nation, with national income expected to decline by 11.5% during 2020.
Australian and international environmental law groups have accused the Morrison government of violating its legal obligation to protect the Great Barrier Reef’s world heritage status, urging the United Nations to place the natural wonder on Unesco’s “in danger” list. In a report submitted to Unesco’s world heritage committee, the groups Earthjustice and Environmental Justice Australia condemned Australia’s failure to support policies consistent with keeping global heating to less than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. In April, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority confirmed the reef had suffered a third mass bleaching event in five years due to increased water temperatures.
Australia
Foreign interference activity against Australian interests is occurring at an “unprecedented scale”, the home affairs department has warned, with independent research organisation the China Policy Centre naming China as “among the fastest-growing sources of threats and challenges”.
Two-thirds of people in a fire-affected region of New South Wales suffered at least one symptom of exposure to bushfire smoke this summer, a health survey has found. A royal commission heard last month that smoke from the 2019-20 bushfires caused an estimated 445 deaths and put more than 4,000 people in hospital.
More than 190 Australian childcare providers may have breached temporary Covid-19 relief package funding rules. The education department is currently investigating nearly 2,000 anonymous tip-offs . The peak body for the industry says the government’s failure to “consult widely” before implementing its support package exacerbated worst practice.
The world
George Floyd’s brother, Philonise, has made an impassioned plea to the US Congress to “make it stop” – telling a hearing in Washington DC: “I’m tired of the pain I’m feeling now, and I’m tired of the pain I feel every time another Black person is killed for no reason.”
Concerns over environmental and worker rights could see the European Union veto any potential post-Brexit trade UK-EU deal, with a draft resolution urging the British government to “revise its negotiation position”.
Police have arrested four people in Guatemala, after a respected indigenous Maya spiritual guide was tortured and burned to death on the accusation of witchcraft. Domingo Choc Che, an expert on traditional herbal medicine, was seized from his home in the village of Chimay on Saturday night.
An international team of archaeologists are claiming to have unearthed the oldest Chinese artwork ever discovered. The tiny figurine of a bird, carved from burned bone, and less than 2cm in length has been dated to between 13,800 and 13,000 years ago.
Recommended reads
They’re watched by millions of Australians – but could streaming services like Netflix, Stan, Apple and Amazon hold the key to saving the Australian film industry? The federal government thinks so, writes Anne Davies, and with thousands of Australian film industry workers falling short of eligibility for the recent jobkeeper support package, the introduction of mandatory local content rules for international giants could be game-changing.
One of the weirdest aspects about the government’s homebuilder package is that it is not really needed. As Greg Jericho writes, for a sign that the Australian economy is getting back to normal we should not look at the housing market but at how many of us are buying new cars. “Given the price of cars are pretty static, and you never buy one for ‘investment purposes’ (unless you happen to like bad investments), the decision to buy a car mostly comes down to how flush you are feeling right now.”
For award-winning author Christos Tsiolkas, the discovery of the novels of Randolph Stow came “embarrassingly late”. “I can still recall the narrow, cramped spaces between the bookshelves, the scent of dust and cats and brewed coffee, the stained and torn opening pages of the novel. I remember it all so clearly because the book made a tremendous impression on me.” And Stow’s 1965 work, the “exquisitely written” The Merry-Go-Round in the Sea, is his go-to reading during Covid-19.
Listen
Antarctic melt. The speed at which the climate crisis is escalating is all too evident, as the Guardian’s global environment editor, Jonathan Watts, discovered during a recent scientific voyage to Antarctica. And avoiding its worst consequences will need global cooperation on a larger scale than has been recently evident.
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Sport
Nobody remembers who came second. The 2020 AFL premiership season restarts this evening, several weeks after the NRL rushed back to action. But any self-congratulation for rugby league’s rapid return has been equally met by censure, writes Scott Heinrich, as sport confronts its role as a good public citizen.
Boxing loves nothing more than the battle of two champion heavyweights, so the news that Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury have agreed to general terms for a two-fight deal has the sport excited. The only questions now: when and where.
Media roundup
Major global insurers have been secretly underwriting work on the Adani coalmine, a company whistleblower has told the Sydney Morning Herald, despite local insurers and Australia’s four major banks all shunning the controversial project. Australian diplomats in China have lodged formal protests with Beijing over the Chinese government’s claims that Australia is too dangerous for its tourists and students, the Australian reports. And the search volunteer who discovered missing teenager William Callaghan has described the moment he found the “angelic” autistic boy, ending a three-day search for the 14-year-old, the ABC reports.
Coming up
After a lengthy break due to Covid-19, the AFL season gets under way tonight with Collingwood v Richmond at the MCG. Follow our coverage from 3pm (AEDT).
And if you’ve read this far …
He’s the red-furred muppet beloved by children around the world, but for one rightwing Fox News host, Elmo is the problem. An anti-racism segment on the rival CNN network involving Elmo and his father Louie was widely praised for effectively communicating the complexities of the recent Black Lives Matter protests. But it left one 51-year-old white man greatly upset.
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