Good morning, this is Eleanor Ainge Roy bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Monday 9 October.
Top stories
Hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets of Barcelona to protest against the Catalan government’s decision to push for independence. Sunday’s rally came a week after the independence referendum that has plunged Spain into its worst political crisis in four decades. Societat Civil Catalana – the region’s main pro-unity organisation – said more than one million people had taken part, but Barcelona police put the turnout at 350,000. According to the Catalan government, 90% of participants voted for independence in the referendum, 7.8% voted against and almost 2% of ballot papers were left blank. However more than 50% of Catalans did not take part.
The Catalan president, Carles Puigdemont, is under growing pressure to stop short of declaring independence, as Spain’s prime minister warned that he was prepared to suspend the region’s autonomy to stop it splitting from the rest of the country. On Saturday there were demonstrations all over the country, with tens of thousands gathering in Madrid’s Plaza Colón in favour of a united Spain. In dozens of towns and cities, including Barcelona, people joined the “white demonstrations” demanding dialogue.
Bill Shorten has called for significant changes to the rules governing the national electricity market, saying they are biased in favour of big energy generators to the detriment of households. The Labor leader said the national electricity market rules were designed to help the big companies recoup the money they spent on buying government assets, rather than encourage households to generate their own power. In a speech in Sydney on Monday, Shorten will recommit Labor to negotiating a “fair dinkum” clean energy target with the Turnbull government, saying it’s time to work together and “put away the weapons of the climate change wars”.
Members of the LGBT community in Egypt are living in fear following a wave of arrests and violence. Rights groups say dozens of people have been detained in the crackdown, with some sent to prison, threatened with death or forced to have anal examinations by police. LGBT people have long grappled with government repression, including online surveillance, entrapment and abuse in detention. Homosexuality is not illegal under Egyptian law, but homosexual acts in public are, and people are often arrested on euphemistic charges, such as “debauchery”.
The endangered Tasmanian shy albatross has embraced the idea of settling down in an artificial nest, according to scientists who are trying to boost the population of the seabird. Shy albatross breed only on three islands in Bass Strait, and so far the birds are showing good signs of adapting to the artificial nests, the trial of which was announced in June. “The albatrosses using the artificial nests are displaying all the usual courting rituals, territorial behaviors and nesting activities that we would expect to be associated with a natural nest. In most cases the pair has added their own mud and other material,” said Rachael Alderman, who has studied the species for 15 years.
North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un has promoted his 28-year-old younger sister to the secretive country’s powerful politburo, consolidating her position as one of the country’s most influential women. Kim Yo-jong has been made an alternate member of the top decision-making body. “It shows that her portfolio and writ is far more substantive than previously believed and it is a further consolidation of the Kim family’s power,” said Michael Madden, a North Korea expert at Johns Hopkins University’s 38 North website. During the meeting to announce his sister’s appointment Kim said nucleur weapons were a “powerful deterrent” that guaranteed his regime’s sovereignty and helped to counter the “protracted nuclear threats of the US imperialists”.
Sport
Nick Krygios has been thrashed 6-2, 6-1 by world No. 1 Rafael Nadal in the final of the China Open. The Spaniard produced a ruthless performance to beat Krygios, who was docked a penalty point for repeatedly complaining to the umpire about a line call.
Scotland will not be at the next football World Cup, again, after a 2-2 draw in Slovenia in the latest round of qualifiers. That result meant Slovakia qualified for the play-off spot in European group F, while England, who won 1-0 in Lithuania, go through automatically. In African qualifying, Egypt secured a place in the finals for the first time since 1990 thanks to a 2-1 win over Congo.
Thinking time
English documentary maker Louis Theroux has got up close and personal with pimps, paedophiles, murderers and neo-Nazis. But that’s not what scares him. “The truth is, the most terrifying experience is when you’re out on location and nothing is happening,” he says. “That’s the worst.” In an interview with the Guardian, Theroux also discusses the “shamelessness” of Donald Trump and the dark underbelly of the US in his latest series.
Socialism is back – much to the chagrin of those that declared it dead and buried at the “end of history” in the 1990s, writes John Quiggin. But it’s easier to see what today’s resurgent socialists dislike rather than to describe a 21st century socialist policy agenda. Quiggin argues that to develop a serious alternative to neoliberalism, we need to look both backwards, to the social democratic moment of the 1950s and 1960s, and forwards, to the prospects for a genuine sharing economy based on the internet and other technological advances.
After spending more than four decades wrestling with her shyness, writer and teacher Sian Prior decided to write a book investigating the causes and symptoms of social anxiety, which can leave the sufferer feeling breathless, voiceless and even friendless. In Shy: A Memoir, Prior shows how to handle crippling shyness and take advantage of its upsides (yes, there are some). She shares 10 practical strategies for coping, which include learning people’s names before you attend parties, and asking strangers questions about themselves.
What’s he done now?
Tweets from Donald Trump have prompted a sarcastic response from senior Republican Bob Corker, the retiring Senate foreign relations chair. “Senator Bob Corker ‘begged’ me to endorse him for re-election in Tennessee. I said “NO” and he dropped out (said he could not win without ... my endorsement),” Trump tweeted overnight. “He also wanted to be Secretary of State, I said “NO THANKS.” He is also largely responsible for the horrendous Iran Deal! ... Hence, I would fully expect Corker to be a negative voice and stand in the way of our great agenda. Didn’t have the guts to run!” Corker responded: “It’s a shame the White House has become an adult day care center. Someone obviously missed their shift this morning.”
Media roundup
The Age splashes with an investigation into the cold case murders of Margaret Penny and Claire Acocks, who were found dead in a hairdressing salon decades ago in the small town of Portland, Victoria. The NT News crows about a new film by director Warwick Thornton which was shot in the Northern Territory’s MacDonnell Ranges. Territorians hope the film will be the biggest cinematic event since Crocodile Dundee, with the Alice Springs director “poised” to claim an Oscar for Sweet Country, the paper claims. The ABC profiles the seven MPs caught up in the citizenship scandal, and examines the arguments they will bring to the high court this week.
Coming up
A man will appear in court in Brisbane today charged with fatally stabbing a German tourist in an apparent road rage incident on Friday. Police say the 30-year-old backpacker and a male friend became involved in a “verbal altercation” with a man and a woman in a car in the early hours of the morning. It’s alleged the 33-year-old man then got out of the car and stabbed the German man in the abdomen and back.
The energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, and the chief scientist, Alan Finkel, are also among the speakers at the national energy conference in Sydney where Bill Shorten will make his plea for an end to the climate wars.
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