Good morning. Anthony Albanese is in France to reset a strained bilateral relationship. Federal and state health ministers will meet in Canberra.
Pacific island countries may halt the use of Australian-provided Guardian class patrol boats after potentially serious defects were discovered, in a blow to a $2.1bn maritime security program. The Australian government is considering how to help Pacific nations close any gap in maritime surveillance activities while the issues – including carbon monoxide entering the boats – are resolved. One of the problems – cracking in the coupling between the engine and the gear box – is believed to have been discovered in February 2021 and Pacific island countries were notified at the time. Two other problems emerged during the Australian election campaign, but were not disclosed publicly until now.
Ukrainian forces have pushed Russian forces from Snake Island, a strategic Black Sea island off the southern coast. Russia portrayed the pullout from Snake Island off the port city of Odesa as a “goodwill gesture”. Ukraine’s military said the Russians had fled the island in two speedboats after a barrage of Ukrainian artillery and missile strikes. Satellite images indicate equipment may have been left behind on the island. President Vladimir Putin has issued fresh warnings that Russia would respond if Nato set up military infrastructure inside its new members Finland and Sweden. And Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has declared a new iron curtain is descending between Russia and the EU.
The former Australian chief scientist and senior academic Prof Ian Chubb has been appointed to head a thorough review of Australia’s carbon credit scheme as experts escalate calls for an overhaul of the system. Chris Bowen, the climate change minister, will announce on Friday that Chubb, a neuroscientist and former ANU vice-chancellor, will lead the six-month review of the scheme after a respected whistleblower described it as a fraud and waste of taxpayer money. Bowen promised the review last year after research from the Australian Conservation Foundation and the Australia Institute estimated 20% of credits did not represent real cuts and were essentially “junk”.
Australia
A week after Roe v Wade was overturned in the US, and just days before new laws decriminalising abortion come into force in SA, parliamentarians are to “mentor” young people at an anti-abortion event.
Doctors have blasted a decision not to extend pandemic-related telehealth services that ended on Thursday, saying it will cause Covid patients and those who are vulnerable to suffer.
And Covid vaccine contracts signed under the former Coalition government could be altered or scrapped by the new Labor administration. The health minister, Mark Butler, has called a review of jab supplies “a matter of urgency”.
Australia’s bushfire season now lasts for 130 days a year and has lengthened by almost a month in the past four decades, according to research. “These numbers are confronting,” said a CSIRO scientist, Dr Pep Canadell. “We no longer have a stable fire regime.”
As many as 600 beehives and at least 6 million bees have been destroyed and another eradication zone has been established in NSW after the deadly varroa mite outbreak.
Victoria will demand at the next meeting of federal and state energy ministers that governments set dates for the completion of transmission links to ensure renewable energy projects worth billions can be connected to the grid on time.
It is hoped a new cervical screening self-test introduced today will increase detection of the virus that can lead to cervical cancer, preventing more cancers and deaths. Australia is the first country to use the self-test as part of an organised national screening program.
The new independent MP for North Sydney, Kylea Tink, says she wants to see a code of conduct for parliament that has consequences for MPs, suggesting the new integrity commission could be empowered to sack parliamentarians if necessary.
Community-based food banks are bracing for the worst as the rising cost of living leaves more families unable to afford groceries.
John Barilaro has stood down from a $500,000-a-year New York trade job to which he was controversially appointed. A day after the first sitting of an upper house inquiry into the appointment, Barilaro announced late on Thursday that he was withdrawing from the job, saying his position had become untenable after intense media scrutiny.
The world
China’s President Xi Jinping has made his first trip outside of the mainland since the pandemic began, landing in Hong Kong and telling crowds the region had “risen from the ashes”.
Iran has been accused of making “maximalist demands” in the latest unsuccessful round of talks on reviving the nuclear non-proliferation deal at the UN security council where it was widely acknowledged the talks – and the 2015 deal – were on the brink of collapse.
Israel has delayed the implementation of strict rules limiting the ability of foreigners to enter and stay in the occupied West Bank, in what is believed to be a gesture to Joe Biden before the US president’s visit to the Middle East next month.
Ottawa os bracing for a Canada Day unlike any other, after “freedom convoy” protesters vowed to return to Parliament Hill and maintain a presence over the remainder of the summer.
Recommended reads
Addiction has two victims, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith: the person using and the person supporting them. Both need to recover together. “While your addiction will have taught you all too vividly what it’s like to see your fingerprints on actions you despise, the people around an addiction get forced into their own unwelcome knowledge too,” she writes. “It teaches you how to smell a lie; to feel apprehension in the early hours; it shows you what’s it like to watch the curtains come down in the eyes of someone you love.”
DBC Pierre’s new book is part memoir, part grand-theory-of-everything: 29 liquid vignettes looped around his time in Trinidad, where he makes an ad with a parrot. The parrot is mostly by the by. Big Snake Little Snake, subtitled An Inquiry into Risk, is the Booker prize-winning author’s tenuous premise to tell you everything he thinks about chaos, life and fate. It reads like a very long conversation with a stranger at a pub, except it is good.
After so many other Olympic sites ended up left to rot, London 2012 was supposed to be different. But who has benefited from this orgy of development?
Listen
As house and rental prices skyrocket, Australians are struggling to keep a roof over their heads. Families are moving into caravan parks and campgrounds, while little is being done to meet their housing needs. In this episode of Full Story, Gabrielle Jackson talks to Lenore Taylor and Patrick Keneally about a critical moment in the housing crisis.
Full Story is Guardian Australia’s daily news podcast. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other podcasting app.
Sport
With Nick Kyrgios, you never know quite what you’re going to get. Two days after he struggled past Paul Jubb and spat in the direction of a fan he said was abusing him, the Australian produced a flawless performance to march into the third round, the kind of display that, if he were to reproduce it on a consistent basis, would make him a world-beater.
Channel Seven is seeking a court declaration to allow it to terminate a multimillion-dollar Test cricket and Big Bash League broadcasting rights deal with Cricket Australia. Cricket Australia reacted with astonishment to the move from its broadcast partner and vowed to vigorously defend its position.
Media roundup
Women outnumber men in the NSW legal profession but earn less overall than their male counterparts in all age groups, according to an annual report card in the Sydney Morning Herald. Australian meat producers and younger people wanting to holiday and work in the UK for longer could face delays in accessing the British market after a huge political row over the trade deal erupted in Westminster, WAToday reports.
And if you’ve read this far …
Here is our list of the top things you can do to escape Australia’s winter blues.
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