Good morning. Nearly half of Australia’s aged care facilities are battling Covid outbreaks. The UK warns Moscow that an invasion of Ukraine would be met with “massive consequences for Russia’s interests and economy”. And what’s new to streaming in Australia.
Unboosted aged care residents are dominating Australia’s Covid death toll, with almost half of the country’s aged care homes battling outbreaks. It comes as the Morrison government defends missing its own booster rollout deadline. More than a quarter of aged care staff say their workplace is not giving them free rapid antigen tests, with nearly 20% reporting they’ve had to find and buy their own kits before working. Trade unions have lashed the prime minister, Scott Morrison, and the Coalition over the findings of the new survey from the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Foundation, saying it was “an indictment on this government” that aged care workers were forced to dip into their own pocket for the tests
Liz Truss, the British foreign secretary, has said Russian oligarchs and key supporters of Vladimir Putin will be targeted by UK sanctions if Russia invades Ukraine. In a statement to MPs on Monday, Truss refused to name any individual Russians at risk of being sanctioned, but insisted the Russian president’s allies would have nowhere to hide their assets if an invasion went ahead. It comes after the United Nations security council met to discuss the Ukraine crisis, with Washington vowing to hold Moscow to account. Fears of an imminent incursion have grown in recent days, despite denials from Moscow and pleas from Ukraine’s president to avoid stirring “panic” over the massive Russian military build-up on the border.
The high court should overturn a landmark decision finding Aboriginal Australians cannot be aliens because it threatens to confer “political sovereignty on Aboriginal societies”, the Morrison government has argued. Government lawyers made the claim in an appeal, warning that the Love and Thoms decision barring the deportation of Aboriginal non-citizens threatened the principle that Aboriginal sovereignty did not survive the colonisation of Australia. In submissions lodged on Friday, the commonwealth also argued that Aboriginal people’s spiritual connection to the land does not create a “special relationship” to the commonwealth.
Australia
The federal government has quietly agreed to allow the importation of unapproved rapid antigen tests for personal use amid shortages of approved kits. It comes as the Therapeutic Goods Administration reviews the effectiveness of the 23 tests approved for detecting Omicron.
Experts have questioned whether a new $500 voucher scheme for NSW parents to access before- and after-school care will be enough to change behaviours altered by the pandemic.
People are “sweltering in poorly insulated rentals, getting sick and sometimes even dying”, social services advocate says. No state in Australia mandates that a landlord must provide a sufficiently cool living environment. This is despite extreme heat killing more Australians than any other form of natural disaster.
The world
A party in Boris and Carrie Johnson’s flat is one of 12 events being investigated by the Metropolitan Police over alleged breaches of lockdown, it has emerged, as the Sue Gray report found “failures of leadership and judgment” in No 10. You can read Sue Gray’s report here.
The world would be better protected against new Covid variants and there would be substantially fewer deaths in low and middle-income countries if rich nations donated half of their vaccine doses, new research suggests.
Belgian civil servants will no longer need to answer emails or phone calls out of hours after the country became the latest in Europe to offer workers the right to disconnect.
Defying all odds, Portugal’s ruling centre-left Socialists won an outright parliamentary majority in Sunday’s snap general election, securing a strong new mandate for the prime minister, Antonio Costa.
Donald Trump was accused of “saying the quiet part loud” on Sunday night, when he protested that Mike Pence, his former vice-president, could have overturned his election defeat by Joe Biden.
A British woman accused of fabricating claims of being gang-raped in a holiday resort on Cyprus has had the conviction overturned by the Mediterranean island’s supreme court.
A booming online industry specialising in fake passports with official visas and travel stamps is offering people with links to Islamic State the opportunity to leave Syria and travel onwards to the UK, EU, Canada and the US, a Guardian investigation has found.
Recommended reads
Midnight Oil drummer Rob Hirst relives the anarchic closing night of a legendary Sydney live music venue in 1980 that the band were astonished to survive. “For the hectic 50 minutes on stage all I could picture was this: smoking ruins, charred bodies and five musicians frozen rock-solid, still clutching their instruments,” writes Hirst.
If you don’t have the energy for sweeping life changes, don’t worry. A few small tweaks can add up to a big difference. Here are all of our easy wins.
Hu Xijin is China’s most famous propagandist. At the Global Times, he helped establish a chest-thumping new tone for China on the world stage – but can he keep up with the forces he has unleashed?
Listen
Representatives from Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany met in Paris last Wednesday with the goal of de-escalating the crisis in Ukraine. Russia has now amassed more than 100,000 troops along its border with Ukraine, ramping up tensions in a conflict that has dragged on since 2014.
The Guardian’s Moscow correspondent, Andrew Roth, walks Michael Safi through some of the possible outcomes should the Russian military invade Ukraine, and explains what kinds of diplomatic off-ramps might be available to tamp down the crisis.
Full Story is Guardian Australia’s daily news podcast. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other podcasting app.
Sport
There were two Australian Opens in 2022. One played out at Melbourne airport, in a refugee detention hotel and on the front of activists’ T-shirts. The other took place on tennis courts, and it is by virtue of the latter’s quality that the former will not dominate the collective memory.
Serves, shadows and selfies. Here are the best photos from this year’s Australian Open.
Media roundup
Australia’s dark and often forgotten slave trade history is on display as part of a new exhibition in north Queensland, the ABC reports. More than one in five regular blood donors have been unable to attend appointments over the past few weeks due to being in isolation or unwell with Covid, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. Australia’s medical regulator is considering lifting a ban on blood donations from people who lived in Britain in the 1980s and 1990s as a result.
Coming up
Scott Morrison addresses the National Press Club. The RBA is meeting to consider interest rates. The Australian Electoral Commission is publishing figures on political donations and spending. And the Australian Bureau of Statistics is due to release the retail trade figures for December amid the Omicron outbreak.
And if you’ve read this far …
Pam & Tommy, Murderville and Reacher: what’s new to streaming in Australia in February.
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