Good morning. New analysis of Australia’s contribution to the climate crisis, the one-year anniversary of the destruction of the Juukan Gorge rock shelters, and tensions are still high in Gaza. Plus, residents report from the heart of the mouse plague. This is Imogen Dewey with the main stories on Monday 24 May.
Scott Morrison’s claim Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions are falling does “not stack up”, with recent analysis finding fossil fuel and other emissions not linked to the land and agriculture increased by 7% over the past 15 years. The government is also under scrutiny for its “women’s budget”, delivered earlier this month. New analysis of the Coalition’s eighth budget reveals it spent 30 times more on tax cuts than it did on women’s economic security.
Days after Israel had claimed that Iran was providing drones to Hamas in Gaza, a factory that makes Iranian drones has suffered a major explosion, injuring at least nine workers. US secretary of state Antony Blinken meanwhile pledged the Biden administration’s intention to deal with “the grave humanitarian situation in Gaza” and seek “equal measures of security” for Israelis and Palestinians as a ceasefire after 11 days of conflict held throughout the weekend. The UAE also offered to play a role in peace efforts, joining an Egyptian push to bolster a ceasefire in Gaza and de-escalate tensions between the two sides – tensions echoed in London when police stepped in as a small group of people chanting “free Palestine” approached a gathering of pro-Israel protesters.
And a year on from the destruction of the 46,000-year-old Juukan Gorge rock shelters, Aboriginal sacred sites remain unprotected. Rio Tinto’s reputation is in pieces, but the laws, policies and power imbalances that allowed the blast to happen remain largely unchanged. As Lorena Allam and Calla Wahlquist discuss, there is currently no guarantee against such a place being destroyed again.
Australia
More than a year into the Covid pandemic, Australia’s lack of clear triage protocols means the health system will struggle if there’s another serious wave of the virus, putting lives at risk. Health minister Greg Hunt yesterday said Australia should have supply of 2m doses of the Pfizer vaccine each week from the start of October, lifting hopes that all who want to get the jab could do so by Christmas.
Social services, human rights and domestic violence groups have argued the ParentsNext scheme is “punitive and flawed”, warning against government plans to expand a welfare program aimed at single mothers.
NSW Nationals leader John Barilaro yesterday proclaimed “the Nationals are back”, not long before Labor conceded the byelection for the coalmining and rural seat of Upper Hunter to the Nationals’ Dave Layzell. But Anne Davies suggests he should probably be thanking One Nation and Gladys Berejiklian for his win.
And Gold Logie-winning actress Lorrae Desmond, who played Shirley in A Country Practice, has died aged 91 after a career spanning more than 50 years.
The world
At least 13 people have been killed after a cable car collapsed near Lake Maggiore in northern Italy. The incident was reported to have been caused after a tow rope broke.
Belarus has been accused of “hijacking” a European jetliner and engaging in an act of state terrorism when it forced a Ryanair flight to perform an emergency landing in Minsk after a bomb threat, and arrested an opposition blogger critical of authoritarian president Alexander Lukashenko.
Twenty-one people have died after extreme weather hit an ultramarathon in China. Hail, freezing rain and high winds hit runners in a high-altitude, 100km race in the Yellow River stone forest in Gansu province, a mountainous part of northern China.
The future of talks to bring the US back into the Iran nuclear deal is under threat after the UN nuclear watchdog was unable to reach an expected agreement on how to continue to inspect Iran’s nuclear sites.
Recommended reads
Uluru is “the rock that plagues Australia’s conscience”, writes Paul Daley. “Mark McKenna’s short, elegant book Return to Uluru gazes inwards to the continental interior, metaphor for a nation’s yearning … a discomfiting, dawning realisation for non-Indigenous Australians that perhaps they barely know or understand the essence of their country at all.”
For millennia, fire has been the prime land management tool for Indigenous people and, while it has largely been taken out the hands of Aboriginal people in southern Australia, it has been reclaimed with a vengeance up north, with outstanding environmental, social and financial results. David Hancock investigates as part of our Modern Outback series.
“We are changing the narrative”: meet the new faces of Australian fashion week. After a year of radical upheaval, Australia’s premier fashion event will look very different in 2021. Alyx Gorman talks to 11 first-timers to hear their thoughts on the industry’s future.
Listen
Rural communities throughout eastern Australia have been besieged by a mouse plague that has devastated homes and businesses. Today on Full Story, Matilda Boseley speaks to residents from rural NSW about what it’s like, and explains what the experts say could finally bring this plague to an end.
Full Story is Guardian Australia’s daily news podcast. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other podcasting app.
Sport
“The football world is fed up with Richmond. We are itching to find fault with them, desperate for them to fall off the perch,” writes Jonathan Horn. “But only a fool would write their obituary just yet.”
Max Verstappen won the Monaco Grand Prix for Red Bull with a dominant run at the front of the field. Carlos Sainz was second for Ferrari in Monte Carlo and McLaren’s Lando Norris “a superb third”.
And rugby league is in mourning after one of the game’s greatest ever players, Bob Fulton, died aged 74.
Media roundup
Scott Morrison has told the Australian the values of working-class voters are now more aligned with the Coalition than Labor. The ABC has released its first Australia Talks survey since the pandemic – and it shows, according to Annabel Crabb, that “what Australians really want is to be told what to do”. Three members of Australia’s Olympic skateboarding team have tested positive to Covid, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.
Coming up
Parliament is sitting this week, today through Thursday.
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