Good morning, this is Helen Sullivan bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Monday 15 July.
Top stories
Donald Trump has told “the squad”, four female progressive Democrats, they should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came”. “You can’t leave fast enough,” the US president said. He did not name his targets, but the squad members are Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar. Only Omar, who is from Somalia, was not born in the US. Pressley is African American, Tlaib was born to Palestinian immigrants and Ocasio-Cortez comes from a New York-Puerto Rican family. Tlaib responded by saying Trump “needs to be impeached”. Ocasio-Cortez said: “The country I ‘come from’, and the country we all swear to, is the United States.”
Epic drama lit up two historic London sporting venues overnight, as Novak Djokovic defeated Roger Federer in the first fifth-set tiebreak to settle a Wimbledon singles title, and England won a nerve-shredding cricket World Cup final at Lord’s against New Zealand. Djokovic won 7-6, 1-6, 7-6, 4-6, 13-12 – the longest Wimbledon singles final – after Federer failed to convert two championship points in the fifth set. Almost simultaneously the cricket came to an even more dramatic conclusion, as the two sides finished level after 50 overs thanks to a freakish boundary in England’s final over, and level again in the super over, giving the home side victory on the basis of having hit more boundaries over the course of the game. The “dizzying, sickening, drama of those final minutes” made it perhaps the greatest game of one-day cricket ever played, writes Andy Bull.
Consecutive interest rate cuts and fiscal stimulus have left Australia little “wriggle room” to revive the economy in the event of a further downturn, Deloitte Access Economics has warned. In its latest business outlook report, Deloitte says there is “heaps of stimulus” in the economy, including “reduced policy uncertainty” after the election, $158bn of personal income tax cuts, reduced bank funding costs, a lower Australian dollar and less stringent lending standards for home loans. “Current conditions are better than many people think,” it says. “And, in turn, that raises an important question – have policymakers fired off too many bullets now, leaving them short of ammo in the event of a more substantial slowdown?”
World
A journalist who Boris Johnson secretly discussed helping a friend to have beaten up has demanded an apology from the UK Conservative leadership candidate as he stands on the brink of Downing Street.
Violent clashes erupted late on Sunday between Hong Kong police and protesters at the end of a peaceful demonstration against the controversial extradition bill.
South Africa’s former president Jacob Zuma will make an unprecedented appearance before a judicial inquiry for a five-day grilling this week over corruption allegations relating to his years in power.
Burkina Faso, one of Africa’s bastions of press freedom, is attempting to enact harsh legislation that threatens journalists reporting on an unfolding security crisis, human rights organisations and press freedom advocates have warned.
Melting permafrost has sparked warnings from activists and officials in northern Russia of a “gold rush” for mammoth ivory, as prospectors dig up tusks and other woolly mammoth remains that can net a small fortune on the Chinese market.
Opinion and analysis
“He was the paramount of exaggeration and distortion and lies. He was a clown – a successful clown.” So says the former EU official Willy Hélin, who became the butt of a classic Boris Johnson dispatch from Brussels when the Tory leadership aspirant was a correspondent for the Daily Telegraph in the 1990s. In the intervening years, Johnson’s persona has elevated him to the highest stage. But according to those who knew him and worked with him in Brussels, the origins of his performance in those years were a crucial part of his political DNA. His five-year stint in the city as a reporter, they say, shaped his politics and influenced the wider British Eurosceptic movement.
Temporary skilled migration has not undercut job opportunities or conditions for Australian workers but the “revolving door” political response to foreign workers has frustrated businesses, an industry report has found. The report from the Committee for the Economic Development of Australia said skilled migrants, particularly those on temporary skilled working visas, have been an “overwhelming net positive” for the economy. But despite economic evidence suggesting migration is a positive, “governments have responded to community concern with a seeming revolving door of reviews, reports and frequent policy changes to Australia’s temporary skilled migration program”.
Sport
As if there wasn’t enough drama in British sport on Sunday, Lewis Hamilton won the British Grand Prix for a record sixth time at Silverstone, with his Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas second. Behind them the battle between Red Bull and Ferrari threw up an epic scrap, one that has surely ended even the faintest title hopes of Sebastian Vettel.
What can the AFL do with the hapless Gold Coast Suns, whose performance at Metricon Stadium on Saturday was so bad it drew laughs from the opposing Adelaide coaches’ box? The region where Australian sport goes to die will now almost surely secure another wooden spoon, writes Craig Little.
Thinking time: Gaye Su Akyol, Turkey’s psychpop powerhouse
“This is the hub of pop culture in Istanbul,” says Gaye Su Akyol, as the singing sensation – who gets called “the most courageous artist in Turkey” and has been questioned by the police about her lyrics – takes Robin Denselow on a tour of Istanbul to explain how political turmoil feeds her work. “This is where I was raised and where I live. This where my friends and memories are. And when politics made things difficult for musicians, this is where they ran to.” Turkey’s most intriguing psych-folk-rock singer and songwriter is providing a musical history lesson as she shows me around her neighbourhood, Kadiköy, an area of narrow streets, coffee shops, bars and clubs on the Asian side of Istanbul.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan wanted the area transformed, and for a mosque to be built in Gezi Park – a space, Akyol says, “where people could come together”. In 2013, those plans led to demonstrations, in which she took part, and to a violent police response that led to injuries and deaths. This summer the mood in Istanbul has changed. We pass an old election poster for Ekrem İmamoğlu, the new mayor, from the opposition party CHP, who in June won a rerun of the previously annulled election, this time with a massively increased majority. It was a major blow for Erdoğan. “People went crazy,” says Akyol. “This is very big. This is the start of things. Erdoğan said that if you lose Istanbul, you lose Turkey.”
Media roundup
The Australian starts the week with demands from five Australian business groups to the industry minister, Karen Andrews, for urgent reform to the building industry. The ABC reveals that an internal briefing note from the Australian defence force last year warned of an influx of climate refugees to Australia and notes the ADF does not have an overarching strategy to address the risks. The Age reports that the “viability of the Christian Brothers is in doubt” after the order has had to pay out $213m in sexual abuse compensation.
Coming up
The inquest into overdose deaths of six young people at music festivals in NSW continues in Sydney.
The annual Helpmann awards for the Australian theatre and live entertainment industry are presented in Melbourne.
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