Good morning, this is Helen Sullivan bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Tuesday 13 August.

Top stories

Hong Kong protesters have shut down one of the world’s busiest airports in a dramatic escalation of the mass demonstrations that have plunged the city into its worst political crisis in decades. The unprecedented cancellation of all flights followed the fourth consecutive day of protests at the airport amid increasingly threatening statements from Beijing. A Chinese official said “terrorism” was emerging in the city, while in Hong Kong authorities demonstrated water cannons for use in crowd control. The protests are in their 10th week, with confrontations between protesters and police growing more violent. At least 40 people were treated in hospital after clashes on Sunday, including a woman who was hit, reportedly with a beanbag round, and could potentially lose an eye.

Australia’s cities are straining under the weight of the country’s rapid population growth, with a major audit finding that $600bn in new spending is needed to keep pace with demand over the next 15 years. The audit by Infrastructure Australia found that infrastructure is being particularly stretched on the urban fringes of Australia’s four largest cities – Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth – where the majority of the country’s population boom is occurring. The problem is being compounded by ageing assets, rising road congestion, public transport crowding and growing demands on so-called “social infrastructure”, such as schools, hospitals and parks, as more people move into cities. The IA report warns that in order for Australia to cope with forecast population growth, spending on infrastructure will need to remain at about $40bn a year.

An Australian coalmine has nearly doubled its greenhouse gas emissions in two years without penalty, under a Coalition climate policy that promised to put a limit on industrial pollution. Anglo American has been given the green light to increase emissions at its Moranbah North mine twice since 2016, according to documents released under freedom of information laws. The pollution increase was approved under a scheme known as the “safeguard mechanism”, which promised to ensure cuts paid for by taxpayers through the government’s “direct action” emissions reduction fund were not just wiped out by rises elsewhere. The Australian Conservation Foundation said the failure to impose a hard pollution cap on big companies was the main reason national emissions were rising each year at odds with the government’s pledge at the Paris climate summit.

World

An aerial view of a forest fire in Boguchar District. Over 1 million hectares of woodland have been hit by wildfires in Russia’s Krasnoyarsk Territory. Photograph: Donat Sorokin/TASS

A cloud of smoke and soot bigger than the European Union is billowing across Siberia as wildfires in the Arctic Circle rage into an unprecedented third month. The normally frozen region, which is a crucial part of the planet’s cooling system, is spewing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and worsening the manmade climate disruption that created the tinderbox conditions.

US attorney general William Barr has criticised “serious irregularities” at the jail where the billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in an apparent suicide on Saturday.

Muslims in Indian-administered Kashmir spent the religious holiday of Eid al-Adha in a security lockdown, unable to call their friends and relatives as an unprecedented communications block remained in place for an eighth day.

The Trump administration is moving forward with one of its most aggressive steps yet to restrict legal immigration, denying green cards to many migrants who use Medicaid, food stamps, housing vouchers or other forms of public assistance, officials announced Monday.

Ebola can no longer be called an incurable disease, scientists have said, after two of four drugs being trialled in the major outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo were found to have significantly reduced the death rate.

Opinion and analysis

Premier Gladys Berejiklian voted in favour of the bill to decriminalise abortion in NSW. Photograph: Joel Carrett/AAP

Is the “revolt” against Gladys Berejiklian over the abortion bill real? asks Anne Davies. As a bill to decriminalise abortion makes its way through the New South Wales parliament, some sections of the News Corp media have painted the split among Liberals during the conscience vote as a fundamental fissure that Berejiklian (who voted for reform) would deeply regret. “This is not a revolt,” writes Davies. “This is posturing by the right, looking for a new war to prosecute now they have lost the battle over same-sex marriage and are gradually losing the war over climate change in the face of overwhelming evidence.”

On Friday the governor of the Reserve Bank, Philip Lowe, appeared before the House economics committee. Wages growth was high on the agenda – especially the lack of growth, writes Greg Jericho: “One aspect that has been abundantly clear ever since the budget was handed down is that the government’s projections for wage growth are wildly optimistic. That optimism helps improve projection for tax revenue, but the Reserve Bank is not so concerned about pumping up the budget surplus numbers through inflated wage growth estimates.”

Sport

Norway’s Suzann Pettersen has been handed a Solheim Cup wildcard, despite having played just two events since November 2017.



José Mourinho might sniff from his studio but football’s philosophers are here to stay, writes Jacob Steinberg.

Animal rights campaigners say they will sue a sporting champion for animal cruelty after he was filmed biting the head off a live cockerel during a dinner with friends. The Brigitte Bardot foundation said the actions of the Basque pelota player Bixente Larralde were “shocking and sickening”.

Thinking time: Mental health at the heart of the climate crisis

Social housing units constructed for coalminers in Greenland in the late 1970s. Photograph: Dewald Brand

The light here, some 290km north of the Arctic Circle, seeks out every manmade chink and weakness; the cracks and folds of window frames, even the keyholes of doors. Only an hour ago a gang of local children, called in by impatient mothers, finally stopped bouncing on a communal trampoline. At each jump, in the heart of the world’s most remarkably situated public housing complex, they would have glimpsed one of the most incredible views imaginable. Only a large industrial chimney distorts an otherwise unhindered view of Greenland’s Ilulissat ice fjord, the frozen womb that calves 35bn tonnes of icebergs every year and sends them floating silently past, the size of city blocks, towards the northern Atlantic and a meltwater demise.

Away from global headlines about ice cap melt, 80km inland from here, this is the frontline of climate change. In Greenland’s working-class housing blocks single mums, fishermen, hotel cleaners, pensioners and hunters have their own fears for the future. Changing climate and the encroachment of the modern age has dramatically impacted the Inuit who live here in Ilulissat, and in other towns across the Arctic. The next generation of Greenlanders face the biggest challenge in the island’s arduous history. Released on Monday, a survey by the University of Copenhagen, the Kraks Fond Institute for Urban Economic Research and the University of Greenland reveals that the climate crisis is having an untold psychological effect.

Media roundup

Gladys Berejiklian has “vowed to run again as NSW premier in 2023, slapping down ministers keen for her job in the wake of a backlash over the passing of new abortion laws,” the Australian reports. The Sydney Morning Herald’s top story this morning is that by 2031, it will be quicker to jog to the CBD from the north shore than to drive. The ABC reveals that “Europe’s bid to stop Australian cheesemakers using the name feta has advanced but its claim on the sparkling wine prosecco is facing growing opposition amid ongoing trade talks”.

Coming up

The parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security will hold a hearing as part of its inquiry into press freedom.

ACCC chair Rod Sims will appear at the Melbourne Press Club to discuss the market power of Google and Facebook – and ACCC recommendations that will affect journalism and advertising markets in Australia.

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