Good morning. The leader of the Islamic State has died. Extreme weather in Western Australia is causing a food supply crisis. And new figures show the ABC’s funding has been cut by $526m since 2014.
Joe Biden on Thursday said United States special forces “successfully removed a major threat to the world” after the leader of Islamic State, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, blew himself up in a pre-dawn raid in Syria. “As troops approached, in a final act of desperate cowardice” Qurayshi blew himself up the third floor of a house, killing his own family members, the US president said. For nearly two decades, Qurayshi was a central figure in the terrorism juggernaut that became the Islamic State. From fighter, to prisoner, strategist to leader, there were not many parts of the insurgency in which the 46-year-old jihadist had not had a hand. But though Qurayshi is now dead, the Islamic State still lurks in the rubble.
Western Australia’s food supply crisis is “the worst in living memory” with the state’s umbilical cord to the eastern states severed, not by Covid or border closure but by extreme weather. Flooding in South Australia has washed out more than 300km of the only rail line that brings food and supplies into WA from the east coast. With border closures already isolating WA from the nation and the world, a one in 200-year weather event is squeezing inbound supplies, leaving many supermarket shelves bare.
The Morrison government is being urged by one of its own backbenchers to “face facts” and accept the use of the term apartheid in relation to Israel. The prime minister, Scott Morrison, said that “no country is perfect” in response to a new Amnesty International report that concluded Israel had “perpetrated the international wrong of apartheid, as a human rights violation and a violation of public international law”. But Ken O’Dowd, a Queensland Liberal National party MP, said he would encourage the Australian government to take the report “on board” and act on some of its findings.
Australia
Refugees previously held in detention on Nauru have turned down the chance of a US visa because their partners – also accepted as refugees – have been denied permission to join them.
The principal of a Brisbane school that demanded families sign anti-gay and anti-trans enrolment contracts previously lobbied senators to allow employers “the right to discriminate” against homosexuals.
The pandemic is disproportionately affecting women, who are more likely to lose work or have caring responsibilities.
The majority of Australians would support restoring funding to the ABC, according to a new poll, after new figures showed funding has been cut by $526m since the Coalition’s first budget.
New buy now, pay later-style schemes targeting renters are “preying on the vulnerable”, say consumer advocates who have renewed calls for the federal government to overhaul credit laws to better regulate the sector.
The world
Europe could soon enter a “long period of tranquillity” that amounts to a “ceasefire” in the pandemic thanks to the less severe Omicron variant, high levels of immunity and the arrival of warmer spring weather, the World Health Organization has said.
Boris Johnson’s longstanding policy chief, Munira Mirza, has dramatically quit over the prime minister’s attempt to associate Keir Starmer with the failure to prosecute paedophile Jimmy Savile.
A key figure in the corruption trial of Israel’s former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu may have been illegally bugged by police, according to reports, amid global controversy about Israeli-made spyware and how it has been used.
The US decision to deploy more than 3,000 US troops in Germany, Poland and Romania is a “destructive step” that makes it harder to reach a compromise over Ukraine, Russia’s deputy foreign minister has said, as Moscow continues to build up its forces.
As the military targets civilians and blocks aid in Myanmar, those who have left home to avoid violence risk death to find food and healthcare
Recommended reads
Despite the rise of headline-grabbing megafires, fewer fires are burning worldwide now than at any time since antiquity. But this isn’t good news – we have made their dangers stranger and less predictable.
Cold Enough for Snow is the second book from Melbourne writer Jessica Au. It won her the first Novel prize in 2020 and comes a decade after her acclaimed debut, Cargo. The plot, however, is simple; “deceptively” so, as some reviews have noted: mother and adult daughter visit Japan, see the sights, take in art and food, go home.
Omicron felled Brigid Delaney but, like the unheard tree in the forest, she couldn’t prove it. “Like a lot of people, I reckon I caught the virus in early January during the perfect storm of the Omicron wave, mass infections, an unprepared government and a stressed and broken testing regime,” Delaney writes. “If you were exposed to the virus and had the symptoms, but no one is around to test you, did you have Covid?”
Listen
Covid statistics have become a fixture of our day but those numbers tell us very little about the people who have died. And does the language around how deaths are reported undervalue the lives lost? Gabrielle Jackson talks to Lenore Taylor and Mike Ticher about why it’s so hard to talk about Covid deaths.
Full Story is Guardian Australia’s daily news podcast. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other podcasting app.
Sport
Our cartoonist David Squires looks at the Matildas’ early Asian Cup exit and the Socceroos’ potentially damaging World Cup qualifying draw.
Beijing Winter Olympics: if you’re watching from Australia, here’s what you need to know.
Media roundup
Omicron is ripping through remote Aboriginal communities, the ABC reports, with leaders saying the government’s Covid response is “too late”. Woolworths and Coles have announced purchase limits on a range of products as flooding along a key freight rail track continues to affect products coming into WA, the West Australian reports. Tasmania’s education minister is stuck in isolation with Covid in France, according to the Mercury.
Coming up
The Winter Olympics opening ceremony.
And if you’ve read this far …
From cigarette smoke to stale food, dealing with car smells requires specialised strategies depending on the cause. Here’s how to deal with it.
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