Good morning, this is Eleanor Ainge Roy bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Friday 2 November.
Top stories
Donald Trump has tweeted a racially inflammatory video falsely accusing Democrats of allowing a man who murdered two police officers in California into the country. The video, posted on social media on Wednesday, is a marker of the increasingly divisive, racially prejudiced rhetoric emanating from the White House in the run-up to the elections, and has been branded by some as one of the most racially charged national political adverts in decades. It depicts Luis Bracamontes who in April this year was sentenced to death for the murder of two sheriff’s deputies in Sacramento, California. Bracamontes was in the country illegally at the time of the 2014 murder and had been deported twice in the past.
It has drawn comparisons to the notorious “Willie Horton” campaign adverts released in support of George HW Bush’s 1998 election campaign, which has long been regarded as one of the most divisive in modern presidential history. But the Horton adverts were not directly endorsed by the Bush campaign, unlike the video published by Trump yesterday. Follow live updates of reaction to the video here, as the pace steps up just days out from the US midterm elections.
Thousands of Google staff across the world have staged a series of walkouts in protest at claims of sexual harassment, gender inequality and systemic racism. Demonstrations at the company’s offices around the world began at 11.10am in Tokyo and also took place in London, New York and Zurich, among other cities. They follow allegations of sexual misconduct made against senior executives, which organisers say are the most high-profile examples of “thousands” of similar cases across the company. Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, insisted that the company had taken a “hard line” over sexual misconduct and would support employees who took part in the protests.
Cuts to support payments have placed almost 80% of asylum seekers at risk of homelessness and destitution, a report commissioned by the Refugee Council of Australia has shown. It said the government’s decision – designed to move able people into employment – had instead shifted the cost of support to charities and state governments, the latter to the tune of $80m to $120m a year. The report comes after Peter Dutton said last night that now was the “wrong time” to be sending asylum seekers to be resettled in New Zealand because it would encourage renewed people-smuggling operations.
The veteran sports journalist Caroline Wilson has spoken out about the “vile sexist attacks” that she has suffered during a stellar career covering and breaking some of the industry’s biggest stories. Delivering the Andrew Olle media lecture in Sydney on Thursday night, she said that when she arrived at her first football writers’ dinner she was led to the kitchen and handed an apron – “no kidding”. Wilson, who was chief football writer for the Age for two decades, said that while progress towards including women had been slow, it was significant there was now a women’s league and women in management positions.
Thousands of Islamist protesters have brought Pakistan to a standstill, burning rickshaws, cars and lorries to protest against the acquittal of a Christian woman who spent eight years on death row on false charges of blasphemy. Footage from the protests shows anti-blasphemy campaigners clubbing and throwing shoes at posters of Pakistan’s chief justice and the new prime minister, Imran Khan, who on Wednesday night threatened a fierce government response if protesters did not disperse. The landmark release of Asia Bibi, a 47-year-old farm labourer, has pitched the state into the latest of several battles with supporters of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), a rabid, fast-growing political party that exists solely to punish blasphemers.
Sport
Cricket Australia chairman David Peever’s position had long been untenable, but there was always the sense that didn’t make his departure inevitable, until Thursday when he fell on his sword. As a result, Cricket Australia now has a little light and air and the game will be better for it, writes Sam Perry.
The All Blacks will field a second-string side against Japan in Tokyo on Saturday, as their first-choice team lands in London to prepare for tougher autumn assignments against England and Ireland.
Thinking time
If the inner-Melbourne seat of Brunswick turns Green on 24 November, it could push Daniel Andrews’ Labor government into minority in Victoria. Luke Henriques-Gomes visits the increasingly progressive electorate and discovers an intensely tribal seat that is not easy to predict. Author Shane Maloney says that in his tiny street there are already five corflutes up: two Greens, one Labor and one for the Victorian Socialists. “A lot of people will be voting because of refugees, because of Adani,” says Maloney. “They don’t really distinguish … between any of the levels of government. And with election day just over three weeks away, Calla Wahlquist pulls together everything you need to know about the campaign from the past week.
On the eve of the US midterm elections the Guardian’s Ed Pilkington hits the road to join Trump’s campaign rallies, where the most powerful man on earth corrals his troops around two visions of America – one full of hope, the other one much darker – and tests the ground for 2020. “There is no understanding Donald Trump without understanding his rallies,” writes Pilkington. “They are the crucible of the Trump revolution, the laboratory where he turns his alternative reality into a potion to be sold to his followers.”
On Thursday the prime minister, Scott Morrison, unveiled a $498m redevelopment of the Australian War Memorial, which will include a new hall to showcase more of the memorial’s collection of helicopters and aircraft. However, the money for this ambitious project could have been much better spent, writes Paul Daley. “In Canberra, a city of monuments supposedly serving national memory, there is still no official memorial to the Indigenous dead of the frontier wars, who numbered, by credible estimation, up to 60,000 in Queensland alone – the same as Australian personnel killed in the first world war.”
Media roundup
“Science Kooriculum,” shouts the Daily Telegraph from its front page, reporting that studying fire making and spear throwing will become part of the high school science curriculum in a move that is being criticised by some as dumbing down student’s studies. The former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull will continue to haunt Scott Morrison, the Australian reports, with Turnbull battling to redeem his legacy and defend his record as tensions between the two escalate. And the ABC reveals that Western Australia-based defence shipbuilder Austal has been the victim of a cyber security breach and extortion attempt, with the offender “unknown”.
Coming up
The federal court in Melbourne will hear a case brought by the home affairs department challenging its jurisdiction to hear cases about the medical transfer of people in offshore detention.
A report will be launched today by thinktank Australia21 on the harm caused by Australia’s current drug laws.
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