Good morning, this is Eleanor Ainge Roy bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Thursday 1 November.

Top stories

Jamal Khashoggi was strangled as soon as he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, then his body was dismembered and destroyed in a premeditated killing, the city’s chief prosecutor has said in the first official confirmation of how the Saudi journalist died. Riyadh previously claimed that Khashoggi died in a fight in a rogue extradition operation. “The victim’s body was dismembered and destroyed following his death by suffocation,” the prosecutor said in Wednesday’s statement, bolstering Turkish investigators’ line of thought that Khashoggi’s remains could have been disposed of at the nearby consul general’s house, dissolved in acid or dumped in a well on the property.

The fresh revelations from Istanbul came on the heels of the Saudi chief prosecutor’s departure from the city after a two-day visit – underlining how little cooperation there has been so far in what is supposedly a joint Turkish-Saudi investigation. It also suggests that Turkey has more evidence to table, and that the steady drip of information about the crime leaked or released by Turkish officials will continue.

The former ABC managing director Michelle Guthrie received a substantial pay rise in the year before she left the corporation, its annual report reveals. The impact of the latest budget cuts was a major theme of the report, but Guthrie’s total annual remuneration package jumped just over 8% to $963,991. The former chairman Justin Milne’s total package was $187,213 in the 2017-18 financial year, according to the report. This was up from $45,963 the previous financial year, though he was only appointed to the role at the end of March 2017 so had been in the job for three months. Bonuses totalling just over $2m were paid to 157 ABC executives in the last financial year, while 47 non-executives shared in a bonus pool of $150,000.

A Labor government would bring in new federal environment laws and strong independent agencies including a national environment protection authority to enforce them under a draft policy platform signed off by the ALP national executive. Developed by a 60-member policy forum chaired by the opposition leader, Bill Shorten, and the outgoing party president, Mark Butler, the platform is the basis for debate at Labor’s national conference in Adelaide next month. The central environmental proposals include a new environment act, a science-based EPA to oversee development decisions and a national environment commission to develop legally binding plans and standards for protection. While not everything in the platform is guaranteed to become legislation, the draft document is a significant win for the Labor environment action network, an internal advocacy group that has run a 15-month campaign.

Police are investigating the deaths of two sisters from Saudi Arabia whose bodies, bound together with tape, washed up on New York City’s waterfront last week. Their bodies were taped together and facing each other, but had no obvious signs of trauma and were fully clothed, police said. The sisters’ mother told detectives that she had received a call from an official at the Saudi Arabian embassy in Washington days before the girls’ disappearance, ordering the family to leave the US because her daughters had applied for political asylum. Saudi Arabia’s consulate general in New York said it had “appointed an attorney to follow the case closely”.

Just five countries hold 70% of the world’s remaining untouched wilderness areas that sit within national borders and urgent international action is needed to protect them, according to new research. Researchers from the University of Queensland and the Wildlife Conservation Society have produced a map that sets out which countries are responsible for nature that is devoid of heavy industrial activity. The study, published in Nature on Wednesday, identifies Australia, the US, Brazil, Russia and Canada as the five countries that hold the majority of the world’s remaining wilderness. The researchers are calling for an international target that protects 100% of all remaining intact ecosystems.

Sport

The roar of triumph from Adelaide United after Tuesday night’s FFA Cup final was the ideal punctuation mark to a thrilling game of football. In that moment it was irrefutable what the game is all about. But alongside the intoxicating moments the competition unearthed numerous points of contention, writes Ante Jukic.

Rafael Nadal has withdrawn from the Paris Masters with an abdominal strain injury, meaning that Novak Djokovic will take over as world No 1 when the new ATP rankings are announced on Monday.

Thinking time

‘Stop coming for me’: pop stars are fighting back against burnout, with Ariana Grande, Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber among the stars using social media to counter industry pressures. Pop’s stars are often regarded less as human beings, more as vessels for bangers. So what has caused the pushback and is the rebellion establishing a new normal in the taxing industry?

The latest inflation figures show that petrol prices have risen faster in the past year than they have for a decade. On Tuesday the Liberal MP Craig Kelly called on the government to consider cutting the fuel excise by 10c a litre. Greg Jericho says this would be a terrible idea: “Craig Kelly’s proposal would only further erode the tax base at a time when we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in transport, which can be done by taxing fuel. Kelly’s policy would thus undermine the budget bottom line and hurt efforts to combat climate change – so not just dumb, but dumb repeated.”

‘Intergenerational welfare dependency’ is a term that makes Nijole Naujokas see red, she writes in the latest instalment of Guardian Australia’s Life on the Breadline series. “I’ve read so many articles where I hear politicians use the fact that my family accessed payments they were legally entitled to as a reason to treat me as less than human. The idea that accessing social security is some kind of ‘moral disease’ is toxic, when in reality most people access those payments to survive, to feed their children and to escape violence.”

What’s he done now?

Donald Trump has lashed out at Paul Ryan, calling him out on Twitter for opposing the president’s plan to change the constitution. “Paul Ryan should be focusing on holding the Majority rather than giving his opinions on Birthright Citizenship, something he knows nothing about!” Trump tweeted.

Media roundup

“All asylum kids to leave Nauru,” reports the Australian, saying the government plans to get all kids off the island by the end of the year. It could soon be illegal to boil mud crabs alive, the NT News reports, if proposed tweaks to animal protection laws make it through the territory’s parliament. And 15 members of the Young Nationals have resigned after an investigation into the group’s links to the far right, the ABC reports. The full investigation can be read here.

Coming up

The Doug Moran national portrait prrize, the richest art prize in Australia, worth $150,000, will be announced today.

The Senate education and employment references committee will hold a hearing into the Jobactive program in Victoria.

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