Good morning, this is Helen Sullivan bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Wednesday 27 February.
Top stories
The Vatican will await Cardinal George Pell’s appeal before taking action. The news that Pell – who was in charge of the Holy See’s finances and rooting out corruption at the heart of the church – had been found guilty on five charges of sexual abuse was “painful news that, we are well aware, has shocked many people, not only in Australia”, said a Vatican press spokesman, Alessandro Gisotti. But survivors and activists are enraged at the church’s decision not to strip Pell of his position as a cardinal, at least until the judicial process is exhausted. The Vatican says a ban on Pell exercising ministry or having contact with minors will remain in place.
As Melissa Davey writes: “Months of silence and pressure on those in the trial has lifted. But the story is far from over.” She can finally reveal what it was like inside the courtroom. Guardian Australia’s Melbourne bureau chief, who attended court every day during the trial, recounts the jury selection: “Nine men and five women were sworn in, among them a church pastor, a mathematician, a chef and a schoolteacher”; Pell’s demeanour: “moving slowly with the assistance of a cane because of an injured knee”; what he ate for lunch: “pickle sandwiches, sausage rolls and milkshakes”; and the contrasting styles of the defence barrister, Robert Richter, who closed by warning jurors that if they convicted Pell: “You can’t can’t come back and say, ‘Oops, I’m sorry, I made a mistake,” and the crown prosecutor, Mark Gibson. Here, in case you missed it, is David Marr on Pell’s conviction.
Scott Morrison is heading to Tasmania to support his “battery of the nation” plan. As part of this week’s attempted climate policy pivot, his government will flag a willingness to use its controversial taxpayer underwriting program for new power generation projects to boost the proposal, even though the project did not make a submission asking for support through that mechanism. A feasibility study for the Tasmanian interconnector proposal now being supported by the government makes it clear the benefits are greater “when approximately 7,000MW of the national electricity market’s present coal-fired generation capacity retires”.
The government’s contentious ParentsNext welfare program is having “devastating” impacts on participants, a Senate inquiry has been told. In one submission, the father of two children with autism said he had been handed a “generic” plan, which required him to take his daughter to a story-time session. “My daughter’s diagnosis means this is poorly suited to her,” he said. “I explained and was ignored when I detailed the time commitments I already have. For example, in the 25 business days preceding the appointment … I had to attend 23 separate medical appointments with/for various family members. “I requested a follow-up appointment to resolve this. Whilst waiting the week for my return interview, my payment was cut for noncompliance with the plan.”
World
Theresa May has promised MPs the chance to reject a no-deal Brexit and possibly delay the departure date, while repeatedly declining to say whether or not she and the government would support such moves. In a significant first concession that Brexit could take place after 29 March, following months of insistence the deadline could not be shifted, May sought to appease restive Conservative backbenchers, but prompted concern from pro-Brexit MPs.
Michael Cohen, longtime lawyer and aide to Donald Trump, is set to deliver explosive testimony to Congress and could detail how Trump broke the law while in office, according to US media reports.
In one of the more awkward double bookings in diplomatic history, the Hanoi hotel meant to serve as the US press corps headquarters was also reserved by Kim Jong-un. Such cohabitation was never going to work for the North Korean security apparatus, which is not accustomed to dealing with inquisitive journalists. Meanwhile, Dutch customs officials at the port of Rotterdam have seized 90,000 bottles of vodka believed to have been destined for the North Korean leader and his army chiefs.
The Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, is under pressure to reject the resignation of his foreign minister, Javad Zarif, who had announced his departure on Monday with a condemnation of what he described as the “deadly poison” of infighting among the country’s parties and factions.
Opinion and analysis
A letter from Emma Thompson makes clear her reasons for quitting the film Luck after the disgraced executive John Lasseter was announced as the new head of Skydance Media, the production company behind the film. “I am well aware that centuries of entitlement to women’s bodies whether they like it or not is not going to change overnight. Or in a year,” Thomson wrote in a letter shared with the LA Times. “But I am also aware that if people who have spoken out – like me – do not take this sort of a stand then things are very unlikely to change at anything like the pace required to protect my daughter’s generation.”
An old green notebook believed to contain poetry written by the notorious outlaws Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow has been put up for auction by Barrow’s nephew. Parker was known to have written poetry. Jeff Guinn’s biography of the outlaws, Go Down Together, recounts how she wrote verses – including The Story of Suicide Sal, about a naive country girl who falls for a man who lures her into crime – while in prison. But the notebook, which was among a collection of items belonging to Barrow’s older sister Nell May Barrow and put up for auction by her son, reveals that Clyde Barrow also tried his hand as a poet.
Sport
“When just last month Vic Marks used a few broad brushstrokes to describe ‘a young batsman who commands attention … a left-hander who has a bit of swagger and likes to hit the ball’, it was the first time the play of Shimron Hetmyer had been described for the Guardian reader,” writes Andy Ball. “Watching and reading about England’s tour of the West Indies the picture of a 22-year-old of considerable style and promise has continued to fill out, as Hetmyer has blossomed into everyone’s new favourite batsman.”
The former Sri Lanka opening bat and captain Sanath Jayasuriya has been banned from all cricket activities for two years after admitting breaching two counts of the International Cricket Council’s anti-corruption code.
Thinking time: Courts can’t keep secrets in the internet age
The lawyer and Guardian writer Richard Ackland writes that “the suppression order on the George Pell trial, which prevented media from reporting that the Catholic church’s third most senior member had been found guilty of child sexual assault, left a pretty big gap in the community’s knowledge of a serious event in the affairs of the nation”.
“Now that we know there will be no second trial, the suppression order remaining in place against reporting the verdict on the first trial looks, to my mind and in this age of the ubiquitous internet, rather nonsensical. While the rest of the world has moved on and embraced the internet and its copious supply of information, the courts are stuck in another place. Can the jury system exist alongside an internet where information flows freely? Can judges admit that the internet exists? Do injunctions have a sensible place in the internet age? The idea that the administration of justice should take precedence over society’s right to know is an idea whose time has run out.”
Media roundup
Scott Morrison will announce a royal commission into the treatment of people with disabilities, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. Senior government sources have confirmed that Ita Buttrose will lead the ABC, with an announcement likely this week, according to the Australian. The Washington Post reveals that the US military blocked Russian troll factory the Internet Research Agency – which is underwritten by an oligarch close to Vladimir Putin – from the internet during the 2018 midterms.
Coming up
Labor will announce a $3.2m fund to help country kids go to university amid new figures that show a vast disparity between city and regional university entrants rates.
Labor and the Greens politicians are expected to accept a change.org petition at the ParentsNext Senate Inquiry in Melbourne today calling for the welfare program to be made voluntary.
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