Good morning, this is Helen Sullivan bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Tuesday 12 November.
Top stories
Across NSW more than 575 schools will shut their doors today, while aged care homes remain on high alert and animal shelters scramble to rehome pets as much of the state and other parts of Australia prepare for catastrophic fire conditions. The NSW premier, Gladys Berejiklian, declared a week-long state of emergency on Monday in the wake of devastating fires on the state’s mid-north coast in which three people died and at least 150 homes were destroyed. On last night’s Q&A, the federal shadow climate minister, Mark Butler, said climate change debates should be put aside as the bushfire crisis mounts.
Australian white nationalists have revealed plans to recruit members from the “disgruntled, white male population”. In a series of leaked videos the leader of an extremist group has revealed his aim is to attract members from mainstream society under the guise of a men’s fitness club, while secretly harbouring an explicitly white supremacist agenda. The plans include the ambition to create a series of “Anglo-European” enclaves in Australian cities based on Orania, a segregated Afrikaner town in South Africa.
Payday loans targeting the financially vulnerable are being taken out at the rate of more than 30,000 a week, with the amount borrowed in Australia on track to be worth $1.7bn by year’s end. New data on the industry to be released on Tuesday shows that 4.7m individual loans worth an estimated $3bn have been paid out in the past three years, with more than 310,000 extra households taking on the high-interest debt products since mid-2016.
Australia
Josh Frydenberg will argue for reform of major international economic institutions including new trade dispute rules and greater input for “emerging” Asian economies in a speech to be delivered on Tuesday at the Australian National University.
A Sydney retiree has been convicted of terrorism and jailed for 12 years by a Vietnamese court in a judgment human rights advocates have described as “essentially a death sentence”.
The world
Two people are in a critical condition in Hong Kong after another day of protests and violent clashes between anti-government protesters and police that left more than 60 people injured. A police officer shot an unarmed 21-year-old male university student in the stomach as demonstrators attempted to disrupt the Monday morning rush hour as part of a day of planned protests and strikes.
The British founder of the organisation that trained the Syrian rescue group known as the White Helmets has died in Istanbul. James Le Mesurier, 48, was found dead near his apartment in central Istanbul. Turkish media reports said he was found with fractures to his head and legs and appeared to have fallen from a balcony.
Hillary Clinton has called the UK government’s suppression of a report into potential Russian infiltration of British politics “damaging, inexplicable and shaming”. The potentially incendiary report by the intelligence and security committee has already been approved by the intelligence agencies.
The chief executive of Uber has attempted to limit the damage after calling the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi “a mistake” similar to a fatal accident that occurred during tests of his company’s self-driving car.
A mouse deer that was feared lost to science has been captured on film by camera traps set up in a Vietnamese forest. The pictures of the rabbit-sized animal, also known as the silver-backed chevrotain, are the first to be taken in the wild and come nearly 30 years after the last confirmed sighting.
Recommended reads
Bobin burned down in the NSW fires but is unvanquished. Ned Haughton writes a letter to his hometown: “I saw the insides of trees as infernos. I saw blackened hillsides with nothing left but rock and ash. I saw rainforest on fire. I saw fucking creek beds on fire. Creek beds completely dry, with water in the few deep pools a foot lower than I have ever seen in my 35 years of knowing you. I saw a country school blackened and twisted and melted to the ground today. After only 136 years.”
“There might be a place where ‘raving inner city lunatics’ are the only people who are concerned about climate change but it is certainly not Michael McCormack’s electorate of Riverina,” writes Gabrielle Chan. “Here in south-western New South Wales, the effects of climate change could not be more keenly felt, as we continue to manage for an extended fire season, as we continue to sell down stock and towns actively deal with water shortages and quality issues for drinking and irrigation. They are just the headlines to our lives.”
The Reserve Bank’s latest statement of monetary policy release on Friday had a rather upbeat tone. And yet, writes Greg Jericho, “it is actually a pretty dismal level of optimism. A decade on from the GFC, what constitutes an upbeat assessment is one that is rather depressing, and where the return to average growth is continually pushed off to a later date.”
Listen
The Guardian’s central and eastern Europe correspondent, Shaun Walker, interviewed George Soros at his New York residence. He tells Today in Focus’ Anushka Asthana how the financier rose to such prominence – and how he deals with his many enemies.
Sport
Stefanos Tsitsipas has elicited “goose bumps” and “pure joy” at the ATP Finals. He beat Daniil Medvedev 7-6 (5), 6-4, in what he described as: “One of the most important victories of my career so far.”
If absence makes the heart grow fonder, W-League fans would know. They’ve endured an extended off-season that will finally come to an end on Thursday. The buzz around the new season has been growing and there is plenty to look forward to – here are 10 reasons to be excited.
Media roundup
“Greens playing with fire” is the Australian’s splash headline this morning. “Even hippies of Nimbin blame greenies,” is the headline of another article on the Oz website. NITV reports that the Yuendumu community is demanding an independent investigation into the death of Kumanjayi Walker, a 19-year-old Warlpiri man who was shot by NT police on Saturday night. And Chinese consumers spent a billion dollars in the first 68 seconds of 11 November during Alibaba’s Singles’ Day sale, the Age reports.
Coming up
The Matildas play Chile for a second time in a week when the two teams meet in Adelaide tonight. Follow the game (the kick-off will be at 20.00 AEDT) with our live blog.
The federal court is due to make a judgment over a challenge to the approval for a contentious luxury tourism project in a world heritage area in Tasmania.
And if you’ve read this far …
Innuendo is reportedly returning to the James Bond franchise in No Time to Die. Surely, writes Guy Lodge, it can’t be any worse than these examples.
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