Good morning, this is Eleanor Ainge Roy bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Tuesday 24 July.
Top stories
News Corp Australia has called on the government to review the charters of the ABC and SBS and to restrict the public broadcasters from unfairly competing with its newspapers, websites and Sky News. Rupert Murdoch’s Australian arm has told a government inquiry the internet has transformed the ABC and the SBS into “news publishers” who have the advantage of being taxpayer-funded, while denying commercial competitors revenue.
“As a result there is now a lack of a level playing field for the distribution of news content online,” News Corp and Sky News said in a submission to the inquiry into the competitive neutrality of the national broadcasters. News Corp wants the ABC to be barred from promoting its news stories online using Google ads and selling its content to third parties such as outdoor advertising companies and Qantas lounges.
Donald Trump is considering revoking the security clearance of several top Barack Obama-era intelligence officials who have been critical of his presidency, the White House said on Monday. Press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters that former CIA director John Brennan, former FBI director James Comey and former national intelligence director James Clapper could be stripped of their status. “Making baseless accusations of improper contact with Russia, or being influenced by Russia, against the president is extremely inappropriate,” Sanders said. Meanwhile national security adviser John Bolton has backed Trump’s late-night tweet in which the US president threatened Iran, repeating the president’s assertion that Tehran “will pay a price few countries have ever paid” if it does “anything at all to the negative”.
Australia’s electoral commission is effectively powerless to regulate campaign material originating overseas, an episode from the same-sex marriage debate has revealed. The rules governing political advertising were significantly broadened from March to require websites and social media content to be properly authorised, mirroring the temporary arrangements in place for last year’s postal survey. But an email from the commission’s chief legal officer in September said the agency’s tools were insufficient to to address the lack of authorisation details on a website posting homophobic material, which was registered in Panama and hosted in the US. Guardian Australia has found further examples of advertising that appears to contravene the new laws and encourages readers to submit more examples.
From 1 August a commercially available software blueprint will allow people in the US to make their own guns using ABS plastic resin and a 3D printer, thanks to the Trump administration. The green light came late last month, with a court settlement between the designer of the blueprint and the US state department. In a statement greeting the news, the Second Amendment Foundation founder and executive vice-president, Alan Gottlieb, said: “Not only is this a first amendment victory for free speech, it also is a devastating blow to the gun prohibition lobby.” Defense Distributed, the company behind the blueprint, declared: “The age of the downloadable gun formally begins.”
Tesla has taken another financial hit, with shares in the company dropping almost 5% on Monday after the electric car maker was reported to have asked some US suppliers to return payments to the money-losing company, according to a leaked memo cited by the Wall Street Journal. Tesla has been burning through cash at a rate of about US$1bn a quarter, or more than $7,430 every minute. The company has also announced it is cutting several thousand jobs to reduce costs. Tesla’s rapidly weakening cash position has spooked investors, despite the claims of founder Elon Musk that Tesla is now a “real” carmaker, after hitting a weekly goal of producing more than 5,000 mass-market Model 3s.
Sport
Dutchwoman Annemiek van Vleuten has taken centre stage in women’s cycling this month, with her phenomenal Giro Rosa and La Course victories. But a new star is on the rise in Amanda Spratt – who could well become the first Australian rider to win the sole women’s Grand Tour on the calendar, writes Simone Giuliani.
Team Sky principal Sir Dave Brailsford expects the cascade of vitriol directed at his team at the Tour de France to continue all the way to Paris, and has condemned organisers for not doing more to stop it. In the past fortnight the four-times winner Chris Froome has been cuffed by one fan, spat at by another and had an unidentified substance thrown at him, while Geraint Thomas has been persistently booed
Thinking time
Camping in a field for four days strips away the usual social boundaries around showers, hair-washing and outfit-repeating. The latest way this is manifesting at music festivals – apart from plenty of pantslessness – is glitter, and lots of it. At Splendour in the Grass over the weekend, 30,000 fans embraced their inner and outer sparkle while artists from G Flip to Kendrick Lamar brought waves of transcendent moments to the North Byron Parklands.
The resignation of Turkish-German footballer Mesut Özil from the national team has ignited fierece arguments over integration and racism in Germany, with chancellor Angela Merkel insisting that Germany is a “a cosmopolitan country”. The Arsenal midfielder resigned over alleged racism and lack of respect, leading some politicians to decry him as an example of “failed integration” from Muslim countries. In polarising times, the ideas of multiculturalism are struggling to regain the upper hand, and Özil’s departure is a symptomatic of a world under strain, writes Richard Williams.
The latest report from Australia’s Parliamentary Budget Office reveals problems governments like to pretend don’t exist, writes Greg Jericho. “Our tax base is narrowing at a time when the need for spending on areas such as pensions and healthcare are growing. Unless changes are made, the government will be forced to cut spending on services and benefits, or its ability to consistently deliver a surplus will be ever more unlikely.”
Media roundup
The treasurer, Scott Morrison, has thrown his support behind a revamp of international trade rules in an effort to de-escalate a growing trade war between China, Europe and the US, the Australian Financial Review reports. Morrison has called for a review of “of how the system has failed”. The NT News says alcohol restrictions in Tennant Creek capping sales to three hours a day are likely to remain, despite initially being instituted as part of an emergency response following the rape of a two-year-old girl in February. The measures will remain until December at least. And the ABC reports that the Australian National University will no longer increase student enrolments, saying quality will be compromised if the university is forced to expand. “If we get any bigger, we will not be better,” the vice-chancellor, Brian Schmidt, said.
Coming up
Australian foreign and defence ministers Julie Bishop and Marise Payne will discuss their meetings with US counterparts Mike Pompeo and Jim Mattis at the Ausmin talks in San Francisco.
The prime minister, governor general and national leaders will hold a reception at Government House to recognise the nine Australians involved in the Thailand cave rescue.
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