Good morning, this is Helen Sullivan bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Wednesday 16 October.
Top stories
Boris Johnson appears to be on the brink of reaching a Brexit deal after making major concessions to EU demands over the Irish border. A draft text of the agreement could now be published today if Downing Street gives the final green light, according to senior EU and British sources. It is understood that the negotiating teams have agreed in principle that there will be a customs border down the Irish Sea. A similar arrangement was rejected by Theresa May as a deal that no British prime minister could accept. Johnson will still have to win over parliament on the basis that, under the deal, Northern Ireland will still legally be within the UK’s customs territory. “Northern Ireland would de jure be in the UK’s customs territory but de facto in the European Union’s,” one diplomatic source said of the tentative agreement.
Music festivals, cemetery upgrades and a virtual gym are among the projects to receive federal grants under the Drought Communities Program. As the government fends off criticism of its national drought response, a Guardian Australia analysis of $100m in grants awarded under the program in 2019 shows that while many shires have used it for water infrastructure projects, much of the funding has been spent on events, the purchase of equipment and maintenance work. Winton council in Queensland used part of its grant funding to provide $820,000 to the Way Out West fest – a music festival that includes high-profile international acts. Gunnedah council spent about $40,000 on “two great country music events”.
At least five people are applying for every entry-level position advertised as Australia’s most disadvantaged jobseekers are forced to compete against growing numbers of underemployed people for a dwindling number of suitable jobs, a report has found. Anglicare’s Annual Jobs Availability Snapshot found that one in seven jobseekers faced difficulties getting into work, such as a disability or minimal education. As the government rejects calls to lift Newstart, the charity’s report said people were being trapped in poverty and receiving welfare penalties for failing to effectively look for work because they were forced to “compete for jobs that simply do not exist”.
World
A man and his six grown children have been found after living in the cellar of remote Netherlands farmhouse for years “waiting for the end of time”, local media have reported. The group of six were discovered after the oldest son, 25, visited a local bar. On the first occasion, 10 days ago, he “ordered and drank five beers on his own”, the owner, Chris Westerbeek, told broadcaster RTV Drenthe. When the man reappeared last Sunday, he “looked confused”, Westerbeek said. “He was unkempt, with long tangled hair. We got talking. He said he had run away and needed help, and that he had never been to school. Then we called the police.”
Russian units have begun patrolling territory separating Turkish-backed Syrian rebels from the Syrian army around the flashpoint town of Manbij in north-east Syria, in a clear sign that Moscow has become the de facto powerbroker in the region after the evacuation of US troops.
A British family of seven were arrested in the US and subject to the “scariest experience” of their lives at the hands of the immigration authorities after inadvertently crossing the border from Canada.
The Booker prize judges’ decision to break the rules and award the prize to Margaret Atwood and Bernardine Evaristo has been criticised, with detractors pointing out that the first black woman to win Britain’s most prestigious literary award has had to share it – while receiving half the usual money.
Opinion and analysis
If you get arrested at a rally, what do you do? Police powers differ slightly across the states and territories. Policing styles, rally permits, laws of assembly and the names of charges vary. But broadly, the process of getting arrested across Australia is fairly similar. “At the very basic level, all police need to do is tell you you are under arrest and touch you. They don’t need to do much more,” says Anthony Kelly of Melbourne Activist Legal Support, who has also been arrested 18 times. “They also need to tell you why unless there are extenuating circumstances.” He’s one of several veteran protesters who spoke to Guardian Australia about Extinction Rebellion and getting arrested.
More than 60% of the Guardian Essential poll sample rate the performance of the Coalition and Labor as excellent, good or fair. The latest survey of 1,088 respondents shows 63% are positive about the Coalition’s performance post-election and 62% say the same about Labor, although Coalition voters are more positive about the government than Labor voters are about Labor, with 93% of Coalition voters affirming the government and 83% of Labor voters affirming the opposition. Scott Morrison remains comfortably ahead of Anthony Albanese as preferred prime minister, although the Labor leader has made up ground.
Sport
Australia have continued their perfect start to World Cup qualifying with a 7-1 hammering of a spirited Taiwan side in Kaohsiung. The win keeps Australia comfortably on top of Group B with three victories in as many matches before November’s clash with Jordan in Amman.
Uefa has charged the Bulgarian football union over the racist behaviour of its fans at Monday’s Euro 2020 qualifier against England.
The coaching rivalry between Michael Cheika and Eddie Jones will reach a climax on Saturday when the Wallabies meet England in the World Cup quarter-final in Oita.
Thinking time: the ‘internet SS’
The gunman who killed two people outside a synagogue in Halle in Germany at one point stops during a video feed he streamed on Twitch, smirks to the camera and says “nobody expects the internet SS”. Increasingly, we should. The Halle murders follow a template of violence, one established by the massacre of 51 people in two mosques in New Zealand in March this year, and imitated by fascists since. In April a young man shot up a synagogue in Poway. Beforehand, he published a manifesto hailing the 8chan bulletin board and then tried to livestream his violence. In August another fascist murdered 22 people in a racist attack on a Walmart in Texas. He, too, posted a document on 8chan praising the NZ massacre and its perpetrator.
The latest killer begins his Twitch stream with the now customary shout out to the anonymity of chan culture. “My name is Anon and I think the Holocaust never happened,” he says. To understand the “internet SS” – these men mouthing online injokes as they commit murder – it’s important to grasp just what such killers seek to achieve. They see individual terrorism as a method for channelling into action the remarkable support that fascists enjoy on the darker recesses of the internet. The architects of this strategy know that the sullen, unhappy young men attracted to 8chan already obsessed over the ever more frequent school shootings and workplace massacres in the US, imagining them as moments of transformation in which a sad loser becomes, even for a few instants, an avenging god, his diminished potency and status miraculously redeemed by the weapon with which he mows down his enemies.
Media roundup
The ABC leads with news that human rights reports leaked to the broadcaster “support allegations that some Australian special forces unlawfully killed an unarmed farmer and his child during a controversial raid in Afghanistan’s Uruzgan province”. Labor will “end its Twitter love affair” the West Australian reveals, with the party “considering drastically reducing its reliance on Twitter as it prepares to release its ‘warts-and-all-review’ of why it lost the election”. News.com.au reports that older Australians in aged care facilities are routinely being given dangerous medicines to control their behaviour.
Coming up
The CSIRO and Geoscience Australia will appear before the federal government’s nuclear power inquiry.
GetUp’s national director, Paul Oosting, will address the National Press Club with a speech titled Politics Belongs to Everyone.
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