Good morning, this is Eleanor Ainge Roy bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Friday 22 February.
Top stories
Labor has promised to create a new compensation scheme allowing some victims of banking scandals to have their cases reopened, and will also lift the current cap on claims to $2m as part of its response to the Hayne royal commission. Bill Shorten will also pledge on Friday to put non-financial losses on the same footing as financial injury. The new Labor policy would allow consumers and small businesses to have claims heard for actions dating back to January 2008. The scheme, which is more generous than the one currently proposed by the Morrison government, will be funded by the financial services sector through a levy. Friday’s announcement follows a move by the opposition earlier in the week to release new legislation implementing the Hayne recommendations in an effort to pressure the government to move faster.
The Australian government has handed $21.5m to a healthcare provider to treat asylum seekers on Manus Island for 10 months, without finalising a proper contract. It comes despite damning allegations of inadequate care and links to a former deputy prime minister of Papua New Guinea previously found guilty of misconduct for his handling of public funds. Pacific International Hospital (PIH), the operator of the Port Moresby hospital, was chosen to deliver healthcare services at a clinic on Manus from May last year, after the previous provider, International Health and Medical Services, departed the island. The Department of Home Affairs chose PIH in a limited tender process, similar to that used in the Paladin and Canstruct cases.
The family of Shamima Begum are exploring legal and practical options to bring her baby son to the UK without her, while she embarks on the potentially lengthy appeal against the removal of her British citizenship, the Guardian has learned. The lawyer representing the 19-year-old’s family is planning to travel to the refugee camp in Syria where she is living, to gain consent to bring her newborn home. Because the baby boy was born while Begum was still a UK citizen, he is British, according to legal experts. The decision to strip Begum’s citizenship has caused controversy, with many legal observers questioning how it could be legal since removing someone’s citizenship in a way that leaves them stateless is illegal under international law.
World
The world’s largest bee, missing for 38 years, has been found in Indonesia. Wallace’s giant bee had been thought extinct, but now a search team of North American and Australian biologists have found a single female living inside a termites’ nest in a tree, describing the discovery as “absolutely breathtaking”.
The actor Jussie Smollett claimed he was attacked and beaten by two masked men shouting racist and homophobic slurs because he was “dissatisfied with his salary” on the TV show Empire, Chicago police have said.
Bangladeshi authorities have promised to drive illegal chemical factories out of the capital, Dhaka, as they face questions over a massive fire that killed at least 80 people. The government has ordered all chemical factories in the labyrinthine old city to be shut, something the local government had pledged to do after a fire in the area nine years ago that killed more than 120 people.
Jeremy Corbyn is inching closer to backing a second referendum, with the Labour leader under intense pressure from senior figures to prevent more restive MPs from leaving the party.
Nearly 75 years after the second world war, Germany is still paying monthly pensions to collaborators of the wartime Nazi regime in several European countries, including Belgium and Britain. The foreign affairs committee of the Belgian parliament has voted in favour of a resolution urging the German federal government to put an immediate stop to the payments and publish a full list of those receiving them.
Opinion and analysis
Shamima Begum has a right to British citizenship, whether you like it or not, writes Gary Younge, because nationality doesn’t depend on whim. “The risks are as much a test for us as they are for her. The notion that Britain could not handle her, could not show her a better future, could not try her, convict her, reorient her or support her, is worse than pathetic. A government that thinks it can take on the world with Brexit can’t take back a bereaved teenaged mother with fundamentalist delusions.”
Late last year, Brigid Delaney received an invitation from her old school. Would she speak at the first school assembly? Yes, sure, she replied, and didn’t think much more about it, until the day she boarded first a flight, then a train, and arrived a little dazed into the past. “No specific memories were conjured but small, vivid details jumped out that gave me that vertiginous, dream-like feeling. In the office I was met by an alumni person for a quick tour. The tour was strange – like being in a waking dream, where everything is familiar but slightly displaced, the way it so often is in dreams.”
Sport
Ante Milicic has spoken for the first time since taking over as head coach of the Matildas, after naming a 23-player squad for the upcoming Cup of Nations. Our cartoonist David Squires casts his satirical eye (and pencil) over the latest in the turbulent saga.
Breakdancing has been confirmed as one of four sports, along with surfing, climbing and skateboarding, which will be put forward to the International Olympic Committee for inclusion in the Paris 2024 Games.
Thinking time: a warm, credible Aussie soap – is it too good to be true?
Television drama is rarely reflective of reality. We immerse ourselves in shows whose characters find themselves in situations more sensational and stirring than our own lives, willingly suspending our disbelief for an episode or a season. But the new ABC series The Heights, which premieres Friday night, offers something refreshing: a credible social drama that attempts to depict Australian life in its myriad forms.
“The series challenges prescribed notions of what a soap opera should be: there’s relationships and emotional drama aplenty, but also pointed interrogations of class and identity. And although it shouldn’t be, the diversity of the cast is impressive, accurately reflecting the heterogeneity of Australian life without resorting to tokenism.”
Media roundup
A major Chinese port has blocked the import of Australian coal, the Sydney Morning Herald reports, escalating diplomatic tensions and threatening Australia’s second largest export. The ABC has an analysis piece on the coded message in Julie Bishop’s departure speech, which encapsulated the politician’s signature political style; bold, confident, and cutting. More than 60 refugees have failed character tests due to previous violent crimes or links to terrorism since Home Affairs began detailed testing last week following the medevac bill, the Australian claims.
Coming up
Hakeem al-Araibi also returns to the sporting field tonight, when he appears for Pascoe Vale FC in their first home game of the season following his safe return to Australia from detention in a Thai jail.
Scott Morrison will make his first visit to New Zealand as prime minister and Labor leader Bill Shorten will speak at the Australian Education Union’s annual conference.
