Good morning, this is Eleanor Ainge Roy bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Thursday 12 April.

Top stories

“Privacy is a complete illusion,” says Erin Quinn, a Brisbane woman who discovered this week she had been caught up in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Quinn was one of 311,127 Australians who had her Facebook data harvested. Facebook contacted Quinn on Monday to warn her that her likes, public profile, city of residence and date of birth were likely to have been taken. She is angry that her data could have been used for an underhanded strategy to manipulate voters. “I’d never agree to that,” she told Guardian Australia. “You accept that when you sign up to these things you are giving away your data, you accept that to a certain extent … But that doesn’t necessarily mean I agree that they should be able to know who I am and what I’m doing all the time.”

In the US, Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, revealed during his second day of testimony on Capitol Hill that his own data had been handed to Cambridge Analytica. He faced pointed questions about the tech giant’s ability to track its users’ movements, shopping habits and browsing histories and was at one stage compared to J Edgar Hoover. When asked: “Are you willing to change your business model to protect users’ privacy?” Zuckerberg gave one of many evasive responses: “Congresswoman, I’m not sure what that means.”

Donald Trump has told Russia to get ready for US missiles to be fired at Syria as tensions between the two superpowers escalate. A standoff over a poison gas attack on a rebel-held suburb of Damascus on Saturday has spiralled into the most dangerous confrontation between the two nuclear-armed powers since the height of the cold war, driven by Vladimir Putin’s uncompromising backing for the Assad regime in Damascus and the US president’s volatility. “Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria,” the US president tweeted. “Get ready Russia, because they will be coming, nice and new and ‘smart!’ You shouldn’t be partners with a Gas Killing Animal who kills his people and enjoys it!” The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, called for calm. “We do not participate in Twitter diplomacy,” Peskov was quoted as saying by Interfax.

The Clean Energy Finance Corporation is investing $150m to drive emissions reduction in some of Australia’s biggest airports, ports and electricity infrastructure assets. The corporation has invested in an infrastructure fund for the first time and is using that investment to target emissions reduction at Melbourne and Brisbane airports, Sydney’s Port Botany, the Port of Brisbane and Ausgrid. It estimates that a 5% improvement in emissions from those assets would be equivalent to removing 14,775 cars from the road each year. The clean energy financier said reduction initiatives that would be pursued could include installing on-site solar panels and battery storage solutions, and converting to electric vehicles.

Wild-caught Queensland prawns, bugs and scallops are off the menu, according to conservationists warning about unsustainable fishing practices. The shellfish varieties have all been downgraded to a red rating in the latest sustainable seafood guide published by the Australian Marine Conservation Society. The society now ranks the trio alongside a suite of other east coast seafood options considered unsustainable. Farmed Queensland prawns are listed as a green “better choice”.

Sport

Sixty-nine per cent of Commonwealth nations criminalise many of their own LGBTI citizens – 37 of 53 countries. That’s the affronting statistic that greets visitors to the Gold Coast’s Rise bar and club, which, for the duration of the Games, has been turned into Pride House – a safe space for LGBTI athletes and the fans and community that form around the 11-day event on the Gold Coast.

Australian field athletes have rarely been the nation’s sporting standard bearers, but unexpected gold medals in the high jump and javelin at Carrara Stadium helped the athletics team pick up where the record-breaking swimmers left off.

Thinking time

The NSW government is close to deciding who will run one of most ambitious environmental projects that have come out of the Murray-Darling basin plan. If successful, the rehabilitation of the Nimmie-Caira property could result in the restoration of the largest wetlands on the Murrumbidgee river. It would create a sanctuary for birds, extend vital wetland habitats and preserve an area rich in Aboriginal cultural heritage – all under private-sector ownership. But Anne Davies uncovers plenty of scepticism about the outcome of this scheme, which has already cost $180m, and even speculation that much of the 84,000-hectare property is to be turned into an irrigated cotton farm.

In the past 30 years the workforce has undergone dramatic changes as blue-collar jobs decline and service industry work booms. This brings wage equality challenges, writes Greg Jericho, especially as many blue-collar sectors had strong collective bargaining agreements protecting pay and conditions. The IMF is concerned about transitioning middle-skill workers out of jobs at risk from automation. It says wage inequality is likely but not unavoidable, and argues thaet governments should not try to prevent the growth of the services sector or protect traditional blue-collar industries but instead aim to raise productivity across all sectors.

Wild Wild Country is an absorbing six-part Netflix documentary that covers the rise and fall of the notorious Rajneeshpuram cult more extensively than any show before it, Sam Wollaston writes. “What did go on? Ha – what didn’t go on, more like. It wasn’t just about a bunch of blissed-out, brainwashed hippies waving their arms in the air and shagging whomever they fancied, whenever and wherever, while their neighbours – the God-fearing folks of Antelope – cursed them and waved their stars and stripes from over the fence. There is more to this story than that.”

Media roundup



The Sydney Morning Herald has more on a large wharf in Vanuatu funded by Beijing that is big enough to allow warships to dock alongside it, raising fears among locals and defence experts that it could be used as a Chinese naval military base. Almost half of WA’s homeless population have been attacked or beaten while living on the streets, the West Australian reports. And the ABC reports that a “singlet ban” by some Queensland surf clubs couild be discriminatory.

Coming up

The former deputy prime minister Tim Fischer will hand over his rifle to the Museum of Australian Democracy. It was one of the first firearms to be handed in for registration under the national firearms agreement in 1996 after the Port Arthur massacre.

Twenty-four medal events will be run today at the Commonwealth Games in track and field, beach volleyball, mountain bike cycling, diving, rhythmic gymnastics, lawn bowls, women’s shooting, and wrestling.

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