Good morning, this is Helen Sullivan bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Wednesday 20 March.

Top stories

The Morrison government will cap permanent migration at 160,000 for the next four years, and introduce new skilled worker visas, covering 23,000 entrants, requiring three years’ residence in the regions as a precondition for securing permanent residency. The policy to be announced today will include a permanent migration intake very similar to last year’s and the introduction of two new regional visas for skilled workers. The push to lower the cap has been under way within government ranks for much of the past 12 months, led by Peter Dutton and Tony Abbott, and resisted at times by Morrison. When Abbott last February advocated a revised target of 110,000 migrants a year, Morrison, then treasurer, warned a substantial cut would increase the budget deficit by billions. The government says the revised cap of 160,000 has no fiscal impact but business is critical of the cut, calling it an economic “own goal”.

The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator has suggested the price of a long Brexit delay could be a soft Brexit or a “new event” such as a second referendum or general election. Michel Barnier said the bloc’s heads of state and government would want to be convinced of the usefulness of extra time, given the costs involved. The EU is seeking a detailed road map from Theresa May on how parliament will decide on one of those options should her deal be rejected again next week, and is pushing for a commitment by May that a decision would be made by MPs by mid-April. Barnier warned May that for the EU’s 27 leaders to unanimously agree on such a prolonged delay to Brexit, it would need to be linked to a major change of tack by the British government. Many Conservative MPs are now convinced that Theresa May’s days in No 10 are numbered and are feverishly discussing who will seek to replace her. Boris Johnson is the current favourite of Brexit-backing Tory activists, but other ministers and MPs have told colleagues they would quit rather than be part of a party run by Johnson and his supporters, such as Jacob Rees-Mogg.

Western Australia has rejected its own EPA’s guidelines requiring major liquefied natural gas projects to be carbon neutral. This leaves Australia without any state or federal policy to address its biggest source of growth in heat-trapping emissions. In the latest instalment in Our Wide Brown Land series, Adam Morton takes another look at the booming northern WA liquefied natural gas industry, which, according to the most recent federal government emissions report, is the main driver of an 0.9% increase in national emissions in the year to September.

World

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Investigators looked at Michael Cohen’s Gmail account. Photograph: Joshua Roberts/Reuters

Robert Mueller persuaded a judge within weeks of being made special counsel in 2017 that Michael Cohen may have been secretly working for a foreign government. Legal filings unsealed on Tuesday said investigators working for Mueller were granted access to the personal email account of Donald Trump’s former lawyer in July 2017 on the basis that he may have broken several laws, including those on unregistered foreign agents. Trump, meanwhile, is currently welcoming Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, to the Whitehouse.

The devastating cyclone that hit south-eastern Africa may be the worst disaster ever to strike the southern hemisphere, according to the UN. More than 2.6 million people could be affected across Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe. The port city of Beira, which was hit on Friday and is home to 500,000 people, is now an “island in the ocean”, almost completely cut off.

Kazakhstan’s president has announced his retirement after nearly 30 years as leader of the central Asian nation. Nursultan Nazarbayev has led the oil-rich country since the fall of the Soviet Union, first as its Communist leader and then as president. He made the announcement in a surprise public address on national television on Tuesday evening.



Graphic autopsy images have revealed the terrible toll that plastic waste took on a young whale found dead in the Philippines. The juvenile Cuvier’s beaked whale died of “gastric shock” after swallowing 40kg of plastic bags, according to marine biologists in the Philippines.

A French Roman Catholic cardinal convicted this month of failing to report sexual abuse allegations says Pope Francis had turned down his offer to resign. “On Monday morning, I put forward my resignation to the hands of the Holy Father. Invoking the presumption of innocence, he declined to accept this resignation,” said Philippe Barbarin, the archbishop of Lyon, in a statement.

Opinion and analysis

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘A small number of ecological thinkers have allowed themselves to canvass viewpoints that offer a basis for genocidal responses to ecological disaster.’ Photograph: Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images

In his manifesto, the accused shooter in Christchurch identified as an “eco-fascist”, a term unfamiliar to many. Jason Wilson tracks how Nazism and a twisted version of ecological thinking are joined in the minds of some rightwing extremists: “Eco-fascism is a longstanding political ideology that is currently undergoing a revival in the fetid culture of the contemporary extremist right. In general, unlike many on the political right, eco-fascists concede the reality of looming ecological catastrophe. But the ‘solutions’ they propose are frankly genocidal.”

“Beto O’Rourke is a man with a very fuzzy plan,” writes Arwa Mahdawi. “He doesn’t seem to have much idea where he sits on the political spectrum, or what his policies are. He does, on the other hand, have an awful lot of money. The US Democratic challenger raised a record-breaking $6.1m during the first 24 hours of his campaign. This beats the $5.9m Bernie Sanders raised in his first 24 hours, and makes the other candidate hauls look somewhat pathetic. On the one hand, all this fundraising is great. As far as I’m concerned, unseating Trump is priceless. On the other hand, it’s hard not to look at the enormous amounts being raised without feeling a little queasy.”

Sport

Guardian NRL writer Matt Cleary gave up playing contact sport after sustaining two knocks to the head. His doctor told him the blows had brought on a form of epilepsy. Amid the current conversation around concussions in sport, what advice can he now give to his sport-loving kids?

Mike Trout and the Los Angeles Angels are close to agreeing a 12-year deal that would secure the outfielder the largest contract in the history of sports, according to multiple reports. According to ESPN, the contract would earn Trout an average of US$36m a year.

Thinking time: The Australian motels that never left the 70s

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Nostalgia is the lifeblood of Kate Berry, the Melbourne-based founder of OK Motels. Photograph: Kate Berry/OK Motels

Picture the road trip: a Kingswood wagon or maybe a Fairmont. Olivia Newton John in the tape deck. Mum and Dad smoking in the front. The marginally cranked-open window only serving to corral the smoke into the backseat. When you pull up at a small-town motel, the race to run in and jump from one single bed to another is sweet relief from the past five hours of travel sickness.

Thirty-plus years later, you’re in the grip of a very different kind of sickness – nostalgia. In the 19th century, it was considered to be a malady so serious it might get you committed. But it’s the lifeblood of Kate Berry, the Melbourne-based founder of OK Motels: an Instagram account – and, more recently, a gig series – celebrating and documenting the unique world of regional Australian motels. Jenny Valentish spoke to Berry about the seedy romance and beauty found in rundown motels, and how it felt to find that so many of Australia’s far-flung roadhouses haven’t changed a bit in 50 years.

Media roundup

Former Australian swimmer Kenneth To has died aged 26 after he became ill while training in Florida, the Australian reveals. To, who transferred his nationality to Hong Kong in 2016, was training to compete in next year’s Olympics in Tokyo. Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said New Zealand should restore the death penalty for the Christchurch attacker, the ABC reports. “You heinously killed 50 of our siblings. You will pay for this,” he said at an election rally. The Sydney Morning Herald says Malcolm Turnbull plans to send letters and make calls to voters in the marginal seat of Coogee ahead of the NSW elections, as Michael Daley’s “Asian jobs” comments hurts Labor’s campaign.

Coming up

There will be a protest outside News Corp’s annual event for advertisers today in Sydney. Mehreen Faruqi, Ruby Hamad, David Shoebridge and Paul Oosting are all expected to talk.

The NSW premier, Gladys Berejiklian, and Labor leader, Michael Daley, will take part in the Sky News/Daily Telegraph People’s forum ahead of the 23 March election.

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