Good morning, this is Eleanor Ainge Roy bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Thursday 21 December.

Top stories

Donald Trump has threatened to withhold “billions” of dollars of US aid from countries which vote to condemn the US president’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. His comments came after the US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, warned member states that she will be “taking names” of countries that vote for a general assembly resolution on Thursday critical of the announcement which overturned decades of US foreign policy. The president said: “Let them vote against us. We’ll save a lot. We don’t care. But this isn’t like it used to be where they could vote against you and then you pay them hundreds of millions of dollars ...We’re not going to be taken advantage of any longer.”

The warning appeared aimed largely at UN members from poorer nations in Africa and Asia who are regarded as more vulnerable to US pressure. Egypt, which drafted Monday’s UN security council resolution that the US vetoed, is particularly vulnerable, receiving $1.2bn in US aid last year. But Trump’s comments may also resonate elsewhere – including in the UK which is hoping to negotiate a quick post-Brexit trade deal with Washington. Trump’s extraordinary intervention marked the latest escalation of diplomatic tensions over a decision that has seen the US both widely criticised and isolated. It came after a day of high drama around an emergency session of the UN general assembly which has been called on Thursday to discuss Trump’s unilateral recognition of Jerusalem on 6 December.

The Northern Territory government has refused to release any information about the mistaken dumping by Glencore’s McArthur river mine of 63 truckloads of dangerous waste – which sent a plume of sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere. Observers are concerned that, despite remedial work, approaching rains could cause the estimated 14,000 tonnes of reactive rock to combust again. Though the government ordered an investigation, it refuses to release details – saying no report exists because the findings were delivered verbally.

The Polish government has accused the European commission of a politically motivated attack, after it triggered a process that could see the country stripped of voting rights in Brussels. The European commission has told member states that the Polish government has put fundamental democratic values at risk by allowing political interference in its courts. “Within a period of two years a significant number of laws have been adopted – 13 in total – which put in serious risk the independence of the judiciary and the separation of powers,” the vice-president of the commission, Frans Timmermans, told reporters. The Polish foreign ministry said in a statement: “Poland deplores the European commission’s launch of the procedure ... which is essentially political, not legal.” The row represents the greatest crisis in the EU since Britain’s decision to leave the EU last year, with the Polish government showing little inclination to back down.

The proposed $2bn expansion of the Snowy Hydro scheme is both technically and financially feasible, a government-backed study has found. The $29m feasibility study – led by Snowy Hydro’s former engineering unit and to be released today – says it could be up and running in 2024 if work begins soon. Malcolm Turnbull’s spokesman has praised it as a “nation-building” project, and said the study clearly demonstrated the project was viable and would futureproof the national electricity market. The proposal to expand the existing scheme – dubbed Snowy Hydro 2.0 – involves boring a 27km tunnel linking the Talbingo dam, at an elevation of 552 metres, to the Tantangara reservoir, at 1,233 metres.

Sweden is moving to change its rape laws to shift the burden of proof from the claimant to the alleged attacker, in a proposal that would require people to obtain explicit consent before sexual contact. Isabella Lovin, the deputy prime minister, said the recent #metoo anti-harassment campaign had shown the need for the new legislation, which is expected to be approved by parliament on Thursday. Under current Swedish law, someone can be prosecuted for rape only if it is proven that they used threats or violence. Addressing victims, prime minister Stefan Lofven said: “Society is standing by your side”, but critics say the proposal will not result in more convictions.

Sport

The former chief medical officer at Fifa was investigating the alleged Russian state doping of footballers when his work was abruptly terminated last year, the Guardian reports in an exclusive. Professor Jiri Dvorak says he was given no explanation after 22 years’ work, and was one of a growing list of senior Fifa officials who were ousted while examining Russia-related matters

Rob Smyth looks back on England’s victory on Test cricket’s longest day in Melbourne in 1998, when Darren Gough and Dean Headley bowled themselves into the ground and Ashes folklore. That day should serve as a brilliant precedent for the current team, after their recent surrender.

Thinking time

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A still image from the Jennifer Peedom film, Mountain. Photograph: Supplied

From Jennifer Peedom’s visually breathtaking ode to mountains to the Deliverance down under that is Damien Power’s Killing Ground, Guardian Australia’s film critic, Luke Buckmaster, surveys the 10 best Australian movies of 2017 – and five of them are from first-time feature filmmakers. There’s a splashy doco about the late artist Brett Whiteley, an unexpectedly touching look at David Stratton’s life, twisted turns from Stephen Curry and Emma Booth as suburban sickos in the thrilling and chilling Hounds of Love – and, of course, the true story of a Lion who roared.

In our third and final podcast on the royal commission into child sexual abuse, David Marr and Melissa Davey take a look at where to from here, now that the commissioners have sat for the last time. The story includes powerful testimony from John Hennessey, a man who suffered in a Christian Brothers school, about the long-term impact of abuse, as well as the view of Francis Sullivan, the chief executive of the Catholic church’s Truth, Justice and Healing Council.

In a plastic tub at the bottom of a drawer in her father’s wardrobe wasn’t exactly where Gemma Carey wanted to leave her mother’s ashes to rest, but at least it seemed tangible. A year after her mother’s death from aggressive breast cancer, Carey set her free in the ocean – an experience that felt both deeply right and deeply wrong. “Selfishly I regretted what we’d just done. I wanted to run back into the ocean and find all those pieces of white bone. Scoop up the pieces in my hands and take them safely back home so I could still have my mother.”



What’s he done now?

Donald Trump is crowing on Twitter in a series of long-winded tweets about his tax cuts bill – but he’s angry not everyone is on board with the plan, which Democrats say will benefit the rich and penalise the poor.

“The Tax Cuts are so large and so meaningful, and yet the Fake News is working overtime to follow the lead of their friends, the defeated Dems, and only demean. This is truly a case where the results will speak for themselves, starting very soon. Jobs, Jobs, Jobs!”

Media roundup

Photograph: @John_Hanna/Twitter

The Age splashes with an exclusive this morning, revealing home affairs minister Peter Dutton has flagged a boost for Australia’a spy agencies. Although terrorism would remain a top priority, more focus would be paid to espionage and domestic cyber security, which had been “well and truly underdone” said Dutton, in the age of al-Qaida and Islamic State.

A South Australian scientist says dung beetles are burying cow pats faster than bush flies can lay their eggs in them, leading to a noticeable drop in the number of flies this summer, the Adelaide Advertiser reports. “The biological control of summer-breeding flies has been an outstanding success,” former CSIRO scientist Dr Bernard Doube said. “You couldn’t have had the kind of alfresco dining we have in Rundle St and Hindley St 50 years ago.

In the wake of the furore over the “ugly” new Apple building in Melbourne, the ABC takes a look back on some famous Melbourne buildings originally dismissed as ugly and modern, including Federation Square, Flinders St Station and the Regent Theatre.

Coming up

The family of Justine Damond are to make a public statement in Sydney following recent criticism by a US prosecutor of police investigating the fatal shooting of the Australian woman by a police officer in Minneapolis in July.

The long-range weather forecast for the Sydney-Hobart yacht race will be released by the Bureau of Meteorology at 10am.

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