Good morning, this is Eleanor Ainge Roy bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Thursday 29 August.
Top stories
Boris Johnson has announced he will suspend parliament just days after MPs return to work in September – and only a few weeks before the Brexit deadline. The British PM said a Queen’s speech would take place after the suspension, on 14 October, to outline his “very exciting agenda”. But it means the time MPs have to pass laws to stop a no-deal Brexit on 31 October would be cut. His plan has been met with outrage from all sides of the political spectrum, with politicians decrying Johnson’s plan as reckless and unconstitutional, and senior figures suggesting radical action including protests, a general strike and civil service disobedience. Read the details of Johnson’s plan – and why he is pushing it – here.
The detained Australian writer Yang Hengjun – potentially facing the death penalty on charges of espionage in China – has begged Scott Morrison to “please help me go home as soon as possible”. In a message relayed through a consular official, Yang thanked supporters for their assistance, and said he was indebted to the embassy for continuing to visit him and advocate on his behalf. “A [ministry of state security] investigation officer told me that Australia was small and wouldn’t care about me. He said Australia was dependent on China for its trade and economy, and Canberra wouldn’t help me, let alone rescue me. He said Australia wouldn’t help because I am not white.”
The federal government is pushing Unesco’s world heritage committee to resolve how it will deal with the impact of climate change on world heritage properties, including the Great Barrier Reef. It comes before the release of two government reports that are expected to project a poor outlook for the reef, the status of which will be reassessed by Unesco next year after previously avoiding an in-danger listing. The world heritage committee has been reviewing its climate change policy and how countries should manage the impact of the crisis..
The NSW Labor party general secretary Kaila Murnain has been suspended after telling the Independent Commission Against Corruption she had been told to cover up an MP’s confession about an illegal $100,000 donation. The state leader of the parliamentary Labor party, Jodi McKay, announced late Wednesday she was “taking steps to clean up the mess at ALP head office” saying she had been appalled by three days of evidence before Icac. Murnain will give further evidence to the Icac on Thursday.
World
The fires raging in the Brazilian Amazon are likely to intensify over the coming weeks, a leading environmental expert has warned, despite government claims the situation had been controlled.
The US government knew for months that Indonesia’s military was supporting and arming militias in East Timor in the lead-up to the 1999 independence referendum but continued to push for stronger military ties, declassified documents have revealed.
Greta Thunberg has safely reached New York after crossing the Atlantic in a zero-carbon yacht. Thunberg has sailed to the city to attend a UN summit on zero emissions next month.
At least 26 people have been killed and 11 others seriously injured in an arson attack on a Mexican bar, which has highlighted the failure of the country’s new president to quickly bring down record levels of violence.
A spate of drone attacks in Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and now Lebanon has raised the spectre of a new era of conflict in the region, owing to the ability of stealth-like weapons to penetrate distant battlefields and hit closely guarded targets.
Opinion and analysis
The G7 was the final straw – world leaders’ wives should refuse to travel with their spouses, writes Zoe Williams. Over the last week these women have been depicted as a useful way to boost their husbands’ standing, rather than as powerful people in their own right. “Unavoidably, when wives down tools to follow their husbands to world summits, it underscores the message that women don’t really have important business of their own. Sure, ladies, you have a little job and take it as seriously as you like, but when there is politics to be done, your presence, which begins and ends at decorative, is required.”
Australia’s living standards withstood the fallout from the global recession but in the decade since we have squandered our comparative advantage, writes Greg Jericho. “The faltering of our living standards compared with the rest of the OECD is made clear when we look at the growth since 2007. You can see that we soared through the GFC compared with everyone else, and yet we have utterly failed to take advantage, and now over the past 12 years the OECD has on average seen household incomes grow by more than ours.”
Sport
The All Blacks flanker Matt Todd is no stranger to the feeling of deja vu. Indeed, he could have been forgiven for fearing he would experience the same thing three times, before finally being named this week in a New Zealand Rugby World Cup squad.
World No 30 Nick Kyrgios yesterday accused the ATP of corruption before clarifying his comments, but he owes tennis better behaviour after a series of misdemeanours and aggressive displays on court, writes Kevin Mitchell.”
Thinking time: “It’s all just meat” – what makes hardcore wrestler Alan Mann tick?
Alex Mann positions my phone on a Melbourne pub table, hits record and leans forward. I press a staple gun flush against his forehead. “You ready?” I ask. “Yep,” he says, squeezing his eyes shut. I fire a staple into his skull and he groans, hams it up a bit, then digs it out with my car key. I’m sure it wasn’t my idea, but belatedly I wonder if I should have participated in this. Mann has a brain injury from being repeatedly coshed with a DVD player while wrestling as his alter ego, KrackerJak, at the end of 2017. “It doesn’t make a difference,” he assures me. “You’re more likely to get hurt taking the body slam than you are stapling yourself. It’s all just meat.”
Mann is a hardcore wrestler, which means his fights are known as death matches. In these sadistic soap operas, opponents use bins, ladders, trestle tables and other household objects to inflict ultraviolence upon one another.Growing up in country Victoria, Mann gawked at the pumped-up heroes of fantasy and action movies. “You don’t read the campiness when you’re six,” he says. “It’s like, bad dudes in leather. What a tough guy. Look at that big moustache. Look how big their chests are.”
Media roundup
The Age reports that Australia is at risk of experiencing a recession if the trade war between the US and China escalates, with more than 500,000 Aussie jobs in the firing line. Archaeologists in Peru have unearthed hundreds of child remains, saying the children were sacrificed by an earlier culture to to appease the El Niño phenomenon. It is the largest sacrifice of children ever discovered, the ABC reports. And the West Australian reports that Donald Trump may soon visit Australia, after the US president lavished praise on Scott Morrison, calling him a “fantastic” PM.
Coming up
Witness K is to plead guilty in the ACT to conspiring to share secret information with the Timor-Leste government.
Ashleigh Barty is to play Lauren Davis in the second round of the US Open.
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