Good morning, this is Helen Sullivan bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Friday 22 March.

Top stories

The prime minister, Scott Morrison, has admitted a discussion took place in shadow cabinet in 2010 about community fears about Muslims, but said his contribution was intended to “lower the fears about Islam and not elevate them”. In a wide-ranging interview with Waleed Aly on the Channel Ten’s the Project, Morrison refused to answer repeated questions about whether he would insist that One Nation be put last on how-to-vote cards, while declaring his track record was to bring communities together. Morrison was also pressed on whether the Liberal party had a problem with Islamophobia, and on his “Trumpian” language in relation to asylum seekers. The prime minister declined to answer repeated questions about how many rapists and murderers were in offshore detention, saying only it was “more than one”. He rounded on his host, advising him not to “sugarcoat” issues.

There have been at least 35 suicides of Indigenous people this year – in just 12 weeks – and three were children 12 years old. Eight have happened in the past week, according to the National Indigenous Critical Response Service, a federally funded service that works closely with bereaved families. “This year, almost half of Australia’s child suicides have been of First Nations children,” the suicide prevention campaigner Gerry Georgatos told Guardian Australia, “and of child suicides aged 14 years and less, nearly 90% this year have been First Nations children … It is an indictment of this nation, moral and political abominations.” The federal government has recently funded community action plans to prevent suicide across the Kimberley, but experts say it is not enough.

The federal Labor party president, Wayne Swan, has warned the resentment and anger caused by unemployment, poverty and widening inequality are dangerous for liberal democracies, including Australia, and the “worry for us is the aftershocks of the great recession have yet to stop”. In a speech at the University of Melbourne Swan pointed out that the economic crash of 1929 “led directly to the triumph of fascism, and 10 years later the triumph of fascism led to total war”. He noted the after-effects of the global financial crisis had brought a number of liberal democracies “to the brink”.

World

People take sacks of rice from a warehouse surrounded by water after Cyclone Idai hit in Beira, Mozambique. Photograph: Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images

The scale of the Cyclone Idai disaster has been hard to comprehend even for those who have been flying aircraft over the affected areas. Satellite images released on Thursday morning show a vast lake 125km in length and 25km wide, where rescuers continue to struggle to reach many areas An uncertain number of people remain on rooftops and in trees. Out of 600,000 people assessed to require assistance, many may be in life-threatening circumstances.

Donald Trump has announced the US will recognise Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, captured from Syria in 1967, in a dramatic move likely to bolster Benjamin Netanyahu’s hopes to win re-election, but which will also provoke international opposition.

Emmanuel Macron has warned that Britain is heading for a no-deal Brexit unless the House of Commons ratifies the withdrawal agreement negotiated with Brussels. The stark choice for MPs was laid out by the French president. “In case of a no vote or a no, directly it will guide everyone to a no deal, for sure,” Macron said. “This is it. We are ready.”

Boeing reportedly sold the 737 Max planes that crashed in Indonesia and Ethiopia without two safety features that the US aircraft manufacturer offers airlines for an additional cost.

Burmese and Chinese authorities are turning a blind eye to a growing trade in women from Myanmar’s Kachin minority, who are taken across the border, sold as wives to Chinese men and raped until they become pregnant, a report claims.

Opinion and analysis

Peter Ceglinski, left, and Andrew Turton invented the Seabin device, which traps garbage floating around marinas and docks. Photograph: Seabin

Plastic pollution is a devastating problem for the world’s oceans and marine life. Can it be cleaned up? According to the UN, about 8m tonnes of plastic waste is dumped in the seas annually. It has been discovered at the deepest point of the ocean and the most remote islands. So the idea of attempting to “clean up” the ocean with technological solutions is one with much appeal. But can these projects really make a difference? The answer is yes, but not as expected.

On arriving home from a long overseas trip, Brigid Delaney discovered that her neighbour had chopped down a tree in her yard – because it was in fact a noxious weed. Friends and family subsequently weighed in to decide on how to replant her barren garden. “My eyes glazed over. I just didn’t get plants. I didn’t know the names or how to plant them. The Latin was confusing. And the permanence was frightening.”

Sport

Scotland have suffered one of their most embarrassing defeats in the opening Euro 2020 qualifier, as two goals in the opening 10 minutes sent them on their way to defeat by Kazakhstan.



As international sporting rivalries go, they don’t get much fiercer than Australia and New Zealand in netball, but this week the Kiwis moved to one-up Australia, revealing the Silver Ferns will play a televised match against a men’s team. But playing men’s netball teams can be a double-edged sword, writes Erin Delahunty.

Thinking time: Marseille is crumbling

Residents recover their belongings from collapsed buildings in Marseille. Photograph: Alain ROBERT/SIPA/REX/Shutterstock

In her flat in a decrepit 18th-century building in the centre of Marseille, Samira ran her hand over a crack in her kitchen wall. “I worry my building is slowly caving in,” she said. “I’m scared we’ll end up buried alive.” The stone staircase up to other damp apartments was sloping and wonky. A crack in one wall was so deep, daylight seeped through. A burly teenager on an upper floor had been regularly told by his father not to step on parts of the increasingly uneven kitchen floor, which he feared was subsiding.

Grief and fury spread through the heart of the city after eight people were killed in November when two buildings collapsed near the picturesque old port. “I have to take sleeping pills at night, otherwise I’m too scared to close my eyes for fear the ceiling will cave in,” she said. Marseille, France’s second city, is facing its biggest crisis in decades as city-centre residents fear historical buildings that have turned to slums could crumble and fall. Most other cities in western Europe have pushed their poorest to the outskirts, but Marseille still has diverse, low-income, working-class districts in its centre. The city’s wealthier residents have historically retreated to the coast, the outskirts or the villages beyond. And yet Marseille’s city centre has little social housing and a lot of squalid properties run by slum landlords.

Media roundup

The Sydney Morning Herald declares the NSW election is “on a knife edge”, as the headline “Gun and Dumber” dominates the Daily Telegraph’s front page, with the news that the Labor leader, Michael Daley, and the Greens are “plotting an unholy alliance to form a bizarre minority government with the Shooters and Fishers party”.

The Australian meanwhile describes the Greens as handing the ALP a “$1.5bn ransom note,” reporting that the Greens would “demand billions­ of dollars of taxpayer money be spent on renewable energy projects in regional areas as part of their price for Labor taking­ power in NSW”.

Coming up

The NSW government’s latest attempt to have a man face trial on charges of murdering three Aboriginal children in Bowraville almost 30 years ago is to be heard by the high court.

The South Australian coroner will hand down his findings in an inquest into the deaths of four people after they were overdosed with chemotherapy drugs at Adelaide hospitals.

Sign up

If you would like to receive the Guardian Australia morning mail to your email inbox every weekday, sign up here.