Good morning, this is Eleanor Ainge Roy bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Thursday 14 February.

Top stories

The former One Nation senator Brian Burston has accused Pauline Hanson of making unwanted sexual advances dating back decades. The One Nation leader used a speech in the Senate on Tuesday night to accuse an unnamed senator of “serious sexual harassment”, with Burston confirming on Wednesday that he was the politician involved. But he told News Corp oHanson had “hit on me” at the first party AGM in 1998, and had propositioned him after he was elected in 2016. Hanson dismissed the allegations. Guardian Australia has seen a complaint of sexual harassment made against Burston late last year, as part of a settled unfair dismissal claim. It alleges he made an inappropriate advance on a distressed staff member.

Scott Morrison is expected to update parliament on Closing the Gap targets today, with progress made in key areas including life expectancy, employment and child mortality. But a coalition of peak Indigenous organisations are preparing to pressure state and federal governments for a greater share of funding after the release of the 2019 report card, which found only two of the seven targets were on track. The group is hoping to sign an agreement with the Council of Australian Governments by the end of this month outlining a tripartite agreement to update the targets, four of which have expired.

The Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists have found that water flows at key environmental sites in the Murray-Darling basin are unimproved or worse than before the basin plan was implemented. The scientific report, released on Wednesday, looked at two key sites identified when the plan was put in place in 2010. They have found that environmental flows are not meeting the government’s own objectives for improving the health of the river at these sites. At one site flows have actually declined, compared with pre-plan days.

World

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Monica Witt. Photograph: AP

A former US air force intelligence officer who defected to Iran in 2013 has been charged with espionage, giving away the identity of a US agent and other secrets. Monica Witt worked as a cryptologist and a counter-intelligence investigator for more than 10 years. “It is a sad day for America when one of its citizens betrays our country,” said the assistant attorney general for national security, John Demers.

Scientists believe they have identified about 60,000 cases of depression in adults under 35 in the UK, and more than 400,000 in the US, that could be avoided if adolescents did not smoke cannabis. The results linked cannabis use to a greater likelihood of later developing clinical depression, having suicidal thoughts or making a suicide attempt if smoked in the vulnerable teenage years when the brain is undergoing rapid change and growth.

Two suspected former secret service officers from the Syrian government have been arrested in Germany on allegations of carrying out or aiding torture and crimes against humanity. The arrests follow years of investigation assisted by the Berlin-based European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights.

Hardline Brexit supporters are threatening to inflict yet another Commons defeat on Theresa May, because they fear the government is effectively ruling out leaving the EU with no deal. Members of the Tory European Research Group are unhappy with the wording of a No 10 motion because it endorses parliament’s vote against any Brexit without a withdrawal agreement.

Buying organic food is among the actions people can take to curb the global decline in insects, according to leading scientists. Urging political action to slash pesticide use on conventional farms is another, say environmentalists.

Opinion and analysis

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A view of the Christmas Island immigration detention centre. Photograph: Andrea Hayward/EPA

After losing the vote on the refugee medical evacuation bill on Tuesday, Scott Morrison has “chosen to push off the loss by launching a sonic boom on border protection”, writes Katharine Murphy. In doing so, she says, he has declined the chance to send a clear message to people smugglers about the facts of the medical evacuations bill and to rebuke clearly misleading statements from members of his team, including Tony Abbott. “By this point, it was clear we were so far down the truthy tunnel that we would all require a map, a floodlight and some grappling hooks to find our way back.”

Trump’s Iran summit shows just how far he is from the rest of the western allies, and

Britain, France and Germany clearly don’t like his tub-thumping. But that may not be enough to stop him, writes Simon Tisdall. “Does Mike Pompeo realise what a foolish figure he cuts as he shambles around Europe, spouting risible tosh about Donald Trump’s commitment to a “new liberal order” and America as “force for good” in the Middle East? It seems he does not.”

Sport

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Shannon Gabriel of the West Indies. Photograph: Shaun Botterill/Getty Images,

The West Indies bowler Shannon Gabriel has been banned for four ODIs after allegedly making a homophobic slur to Joe Root. Gabriel has been sanctioned for his part in an on-field exchange with Root on day three of the third Test in St Lucia, which ended with the England captain telling the 30-year-old: “Don’t use it as an insult. There’s nothing wrong with being gay.”

Lewis Hamilton has delivered an ominous warning to his Formula One rivals by vowing to improve on his 2018 championship-winning campaign. As he enters the first campaign of the new two-year Mercedes deal which will earn him £40m a season, he says he is ready to continue his dominance of the sport.

Thinking time: Hakeem al-Araibi: power, politics, football and the will of the people

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Refugee footballer Hakeem al-Araibi arrives at Melbourne airport.

Photograph: David Crosling/EPA

The plight of Hakeem al-Araibi, a 25-year-old Bahraini dissident, football player, refugee and Australian resident, who was detained in a Thai jail cell for 77 days as Bahrain petitioned for his extradition, was slow to gather widespread attention. The footballer’s plight crossed lines of international diplomacy, human rights, the Arab spring, sport and domestic politics. Now Al-Araibi is finally home, Guardian Australia’s immigration correspondent, Helen Davidson, takes a forensic look at the case, and wonders if others like it will ever have the same outcome.

“Before Hakeem al-Araibi walked into Melbourne airport’s arrivals area, into the hordes of waiting media and supporters, he stopped in the duty-free shop to buy his wife some perfume. It had been 77 days since they’d been alone together. Seventy-seven days since their planned honeymoon to Thailand’s beaches was stopped before it began, as Thai authorities met the couple as they disembarked from the plane at Bangkok and arrested Al-Araibi on an Interpol red notice he had no idea existed.”

Media roundup

Teachers will have their Hecs debts waived if they sign up work in remote Indigenous communities, the Australian reports, with the prime minister on a mission to reform the Closing the Gap process. The Adelaide Advertiser reports that more than half of year 1 students are failing to meet the state’s first basic language test, with close to 600 not able to read a single word correctly. The ABC takes a look at the vast distances flowers have travelled to florists in Australia, which local growers say represents unfair competition and a constant biosecurity threat. The majority of flowers for sale this Valentine’s Day will have been imported from as far afield as Kenya, Ecuador and Singapore.

Coming up

A senate inquiry report into the government’s $5bn jobactive program is expected to be tabled in parliament highlighting flaws with the program aimed at getting Australians back into work.

Hakeem al-Araibi, the Bahraini refugee footballer detained in Thailand will be in Canberra today to meet the prime minister, Scott Morrison, and foreign minister, Marise Payne. He will also play in a specially arranged game of football.

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