Good morning, this is Helen Sullivan bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Wednesday 24 October.
Top stories
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has called for the “highest ranked” of those responsible for the murder of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi killing to face justice. In a speech in parliament in Ankara, Erdoğan tore down Saudi claims that the dissident journalist died in a fight in the country’s Istanbul consulate, making fresh allegations that his “savage” murder was premeditated and calling for an independent investigation in Turkey. Erdoğan had billed his hotly anticipated address as the moment he would reveal the “naked truth” about what happened to Khashoggi but, contrary to expectations, he did not officially reveal the existence of audio and video evidence understood to be in Turkey’s possession.
Erdoğan did reveal that on the day before Khashoggi was killed, Saudi agents arrived in Istanbul and began to scout locations, including the Belgrad forest near Ankara and the city of Yalova to its south. Police have subsequently searched both areas for Khashoggi’s remains. The president did not name the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, who it is alleged was probably aware of and possibly ordered the silencing of his prominent critic, but observers were in little doubt to who his repeated mentions of “highest ranked” referred. Meanwhile, in Riyadh, Khashoggi’s eldest son shook hands with the prince as “Davos in the Desert” got under way.
The Coalition could indemnify new coal projects against the future carbon price risk, the energy minister, Angus Taylor, says. Taylor has also said the Coalition could support the retrofitting of existing coal plants. In an interview with Guardian Australia, the man dubbed the “minister for getting power prices down” by the prime minister, Scott Morrison, said: “The risks that government needs to absorb to get investment in reliable generation, we will look at absorbing.” One of the key problems preventing private investment in new coal-fired power generation is that proponents have struggled to get finance because they are unable to predict future carbon risk, particularly given Australia’s decade-long partisan standoff over emissions reduction policies. Read the interview in full here.
Julie Bishop says voters risk being “duped” by populist political leaders. The former foreign affairs minister and now high-profile backbencher will use a keynote speech to a security conference in Canberra this morning to warn that populism is on the rise around the world, and that the resurgence is “coinciding with a crisis of confidence in democracy”. She says the US president, Donald Trump, campaigned for the presidency on a platform of disruption and disregard for the political establishment and its norms, and quips: “To be fair, he has largely honoured his campaign commitments.”
Dragoman Global will register as a lobbyist, following revelations that the Melbourne-based consultancy was approaching politicians without being on the lobbyist register. The well-connected firm stacked with former ministers and former senior bureaucrats will subject itself to federal lobbying laws after saying repeatedly that it does not lobby federal government and is not required to place itself on the lobbyist register. Firms that are not on the register can hide their clients and the names of their individual lobbyists from the public. Guardian Australia revealed this month that Dragoman was meeting with federal politicians, including the shadow defence minister, Richard Marles, and a crossbench senator, Rex Patrick.
An explosive device has been discovered in the mailbox at George Soros’s home. The billionaire financier and philanthropist, a political activist and major donor to liberal causes, has been a favourite target for rightwing groups and conspiracy theories, and a magnet for criticism from Donald Trump. An employee at the home found the device and took the parcel to a nearby wooded area before alerting law enforcement. Bomb squad technicians detonated the package in the wooded area. Soros was not home at the time. A law enforcement official said Tuesday that the device “had the components” of an actual bomb, including explosive powder. “The components were there for an explosive device,” the official said, adding it was “not a hoax device.”
Sport
The W-League is entering its 11th incarnation. This campaign arrives at a significant time in the international cycle, immediately preceding next year’s Women’s World Cup in France. It’s an opportunity to push for improved conditions.
Nobody can afford to host the Olympics, writes Andy Bull, and yet the International Olympic Committee seems to be living in an era where money is no object.
Thinking time
The philosopher Umberto Eco didn’t think Peanuts was about nothing. He once tried to explain why 355 million people around the world were captivated by a weekly comic strip. “These children,” wrote Eco in his foreword to Arriva Charlie Brown!, the 1963 book that introduced Peanuts to Italy, “affect us because, in a certain sense, they are monsters: they are monstrous infantile reductions of all the neuroses of a modern citizen of industrial civilisation.” Good grief, Charlie Brown.
“I’m floating over the top of the car.” Until Tuesday, Mike Africa Jr had never spent time with both of his parents in the same room. His father, the US black liberation prisoner Mike Africa Sr has been released after 40 years in prison and reunited with his wife, Debbie Africa, who was also let out on parole in June having been arrested alongside him at the climax of a police siege in 1978. They were joined by their son, who was born in a cell where Debbie gave birth to him a month after she and her husband were arrested during the siege.
Is socialism the answer to climate change? “Most of us know, deep in our guts, that the inability of the political class to acknowledge (let alone act on) the threat of global warming doesn’t stem exclusively from the machinations of media barons or the personal pusillanimity of individual politicians,” Jeff Sparrow writes. “It’s increasingly difficult to ignore the profound incompatibility between serious climate action and an economic system predicated upon the pursuit of profit in a ceaseless war of all against all.”
Media roundup
Sydney Trains’ ability to cope with emergencies requires “significant improvement”, according to a confidential report, the Sydney Morning Herald says. The Australian is leading with the news that Labor’s plan to end negative gearing would result in a $12bn downturn in construction activity in over five years, according to a report commissioned bu Master Builders Australia. The Mercury, meanwhile, has the headline of the day with Pulled Pork, a story about the closure of Tasmania’s only major abattoir.
Coming up
Senate estimates hearings continue, with a focus on health, Treasury, jobs and small business, and defence. Counting continues in the Wentworth byelection.
Australia’s first T20 match against Pakistan is coming up at 3am AEDT in Sheikh Zayed Stadium, Abu Dhabi.
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