Good morning, this is Helen Sullivan bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Thursday 10 October.

Top stories

The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has said that a long-planned Turkish military operation in north-east Syria has begun, as Kurdish forces that currently control the area reported widespread airstrikes and “huge panic”. The move was triggered by Donald Trump’s announcement at the weekend that US troops would withdraw from the region, where thousands of captured Isis fighters and their families are held by Kurdish forces, and threatens to open a bloody new front in the Syrian war. Women and children in the largest Islamic State detention centre in Kurdish-controlled Syria are expecting to be freed in the wake of a Turkish assault on the area, according to people inside the camp. Al-Hawl is home to about 60,000 women and children with links to Isis and 10,000 displaced civilians.

The Guardian has revealed the top 20 firms behind a third of all carbon emissions as part of a major investigation into the world’s biggest polluters. New data from world-renowned researchers reveals how this cohort of state-owned and multinational firms are driving the climate emergency that threatens the future of humanity, and details how they have continued to expand their operations despite being aware of the industry’s devastating impact on the planet for decades. The top 20 companies on the list have contributed to 35% of all energy-related carbon dioxide and methane worldwide. A Guardian analysis also reveals how a wave of planned fossil fuel developments across northern Australia would significantly increase the amount of coal and gas the country plans to sell into Asia and push the Paris climate agreement goals further beyond reach.

Asylum seekers approved for medevac transfers to Australia are among the 52 men locked up in Port Moresby detention without access to phones or lawyers for the past two months, after Papua New Guinean authorities arrested dozens of men who had been sent by Australia for refugee detention and processing, and confiscated phones and medication. The vast majority are Iranian and more than half are at some point of the medevac process, having applied for it; been approved or refused; or were seeking re-evaluation. The Australian government has confirmed that approvals for medevacs have been “communicated” to Port Moresby but said the management of detainees inside Bomana is a matter for the PNG government.

World

German chancellor Angela Merkel, centre, stands with Rabbi Gesa S Ederberg, left, and other members of the Jewish community at the New Synagogue in Berlin. Photograph: Anton Roland Laub/AFP via Getty Images

Two people died in the eastern German city of Halle on Wednesday, after a gunman in a military-style outfit tried to force his way into a synagogue in an attempted mass shooting that may be linked to antisemitic, rightwing extremism.

Michel Barnier has called on Boris Johnson to rein in the Downing Street aides responsible for attacking Angela Merkel as the EU doubled down on its rejection of the prime minister’s proposals.

Donald Trump’s $1.5tn tax cuts helped billionaires pay a lower rate than the working class for the first time in history.

Facebook has marked hundreds of thousands of children as “interested in” adverts about gambling and alcohol, a joint investigation by the Guardian and the Danish Broadcasting Corporation has found.

Coleen Rooney has claimed to have caught another footballer’s wife passing her private information to the Sun newspaper, after apparently running an elaborate sting operation. The dramatic accusation set Twitter alight.

Opinion and analysis

Extinction Rebellion and other climate protesters have a right to be angry, Greg Jericho writes. Illustration: Guardian Design

There is a reason Extinction Rebellion protesters are so angry about inaction on climate change, writes Greg Jericho. “The last year to experience global annual temperatures below the 1951-1980 average was 1976 – so if you are less than 43 years old you have never experienced a year with below average temperatures. If you are under 34 you have not even experienced a month of below-average global temperatures – because the last such month was February 1985, and even that was a bit of an oddity as it was just the second such month in six years. Even if you are 65 years old and ready for retirement, 79% of your life has been spent in a world with above-average temperatures.”

We shouldn’t fear video games – they bring young people together, writes Emily Gera. “While fears around the rise of esports abound, in bedrooms and internet cafes around the world games such as League of Legends, Dota 2 and Fortnite have become a cultural phenomenon, bringing young people from different regions and religions together and bridging divides. Slang, inside jokes and dance moves flow out of them as if they were a proto-society. Idols are made out of their best players – just ordinary teenagers and twentysomethings who cut their teeth in competitive leagues and then develop their own enormous followings over social media and online streams.”

Sport

Western United play their first A-League game on Sunday. The team’s introduction offers cause for optimism, writes Jonathan Howcroft, and the expansion club’s progress throughout the season will be monitored with interest.

The Wallabies’ David Pocock has partnered with a scheme that aims to compensate for the carbon emissions associated with travel. Pocock convinced Rugby World Cup teammates Bernard Foley and Dane Haylett-Petty to join him in encouraging the sports industry to play a bigger role in sustainability.

Thinking time: Thai cave rescue finally gets its first film

A scene from The Cave, the first big-screen retelling of the Thai rescue operation. Photograph: BIFF/AFP via Getty Images

In the days and weeks following the gruelling rescue of 12 boys and their football coach from the Tham Luong caves in 2018, the Thai government took control of the story. Or, more accurately, took control of the boys and the rights to their story. “The Ministry of Culture were the custodians of the children’s rights,” says Tom Waller, the director of a new film about the rescue, The Cave. “They were protecting the boys’ interests for the first six months [after] they got out.”

Like tens of millions of people around the world, Waller had watched from afar as one of the worst fears the human psyche can conjure was being played out in real time: that of being trapped in the dark, in a cave, with no way to escape. Waller, whose mother is Thai, joined the scramble to tell the story of near impossible odds. But the main protagonists, the children, were taken out of the frame when the government signed a deal with Netflix and a US production company to film a miniseries. So Waller’s retelling of the rescue shifted focus to the divers – who play themselves in the film – and the other “unsung heroes”.

Media roundup

The ABC reports that a “record number of Chinese military personnel” have attended this year’s Australian Naval Sea Power conference “to monitor high-level military discussions and examine cutting edge technology being adopted by the Australian defence force”. The Australian leads with the news that “US secretary of commerce Wilbur Ross has suggested Australia should replicate Donald Trump’s corporate tax cuts”. On the Australian Financial Review’s front page, ANZ chief executive Shane Elliott is calling for Josh Frydenberg to “convene a summit to discuss the broader economic implications of zero percent interest rates and quantitative easing.”

Coming up

Former Greens senator Scott Ludlam to face court after he was arrested in Sydney during an Extinction Rebellion protest.

Icac inquiry into political donations and the NSW branch of the Labor party continues.

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