Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Security officials fear UK telcos could run out of vital parts if US pressure disrupts supplies
British security officials have told telecoms operators to ensure they have adequate stockpiles of Huawei equipment owing to fears that US sanctions will disrupt the Chinese firm’s ability to maintain critical supplies, according to a letter seen by Reuters.
Also, the Five Eyes finance ministers met. Given what their operatives do, a meeting seems superfluous, but ok.
Today Australia hosted a call with the Finance Ministers of the “Five Eyes” nations – Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom and the United States.
It was the first of what will be regular calls among the countries to discuss the economic issues associated with COVID-19.
I guess when you don’t have the Global Times, you have to be a little more overt in your silent diplomacy.
Many bank directors received compensation after slavery was made illegal in 1833
The slave trade was abolished in the British Empire in 1807 but it was not until 1833 that the Slavery Abolition Act finally banned the ownership of other human beings. However, 46,000 slave owners continued to benefit financially as the subsequent Slave Compensation Act provided £20m in payments – a sum worth billions in 2020 terms. Despite the name of the act, the former slaves were not compensated.
University College London’s Legacies of British Slave Ownership project shows that 10% to 20% of Britain’s wealthy can be identified as having had significant links to slavery. The amount of money borrowed to pay off slave owners was so large that the government only repaid it fully in 2015. Companies with links to slavery in their past include:
Michael Gunner declared the NT Covid-free and will prepare to allow domestic travel; person who attended Melbourne Black Lives Matter protest among new Vic cases. Follow live
Tony Smith: The Prime Minister will resume his seat. The Prime Minister will resume his seat. The Manager of Opposition Business will resume his seat. The Prime Minister needs to withdraw that imputation.
Anthony Albanese to Scott Morrison:
My question is to the Prime Minister. Under this Prime Minister, Australia has entered its first recession in three decades. Australia now has an effective unemployment rate of 11.3%. How many unemployed Australians don’t have a job because the Prime Minister deliberately excluded them from JobKeeper?
No-one in this country is unemployed because of the Government’s responses.
People are unemployed in this country, people have been reduced to zero hours which is the same thing, people have been hit by the coronavirus pandemic!
Locals say the Sepik river region must be protected from ‘exploitation and destruction from outsiders’
Chiefs from 28 haus tambarans – “spirit houses” – representing 78,000 people along Papua New Guinea’s remote Sepik river have formally declared they want a proposal for the country’s largest ever mine halted.
PanAust, an Australian-registered miner ultimately owned by the Chinese state-owned Guangdong Rising Assets Management, has proposed building a gold, silver and copper mine on the Frieda river, a tributary to the Sepik.
VBS Mutual collapsed in 2018 with £100m of debts allegedly looted in ‘pattern of racketeering’
A number of people have been arrested by police investigating one of South Africa’s most notorious corruption scandals, the looting and collapse of VBS Mutual Bank.
VBS, which held the savings of many disadvantaged people and local municipalities, collapsed with more than £100m in debts in 2018. Much of the money had been siphoned into private bank accounts and some spent on property or luxury cars, investigators found.
Australia and New Zealand are about to begin negotiations on a free trade agreement with the UK in what the Australian trade minister said was “a strong signal of our mutual support for free trade” in a post-Covid-19 world.
Simon Birmingham said Australia was “ready to help the UK find new beginnings post-Brexit and in doing so, open up new doors for our farmers, businesses and investors”.
Julian Hill is looking at the government’s spend on consultants (an evergreen sentence, no matter what political party is in government)
New analysis by the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) has found that the big four consultancy firms – Deloitte, Ernest&Young, KPMG and PwC – now collectively reap $800m a year in government contracts.
But only 20% of that figure is spent on actual consultancy contracts, meaning the Morrison government is paying top dollar to large consultancy firms to work as contractors doing the day-to-day work of public servants.
The Australia Institute has begun a new campaign to have truth in advertising part of Australia’s political advertising.
An open letter coordinated by the Australia Institute and signed by 29 prominent Australians calls for parliament to pass truth-in-political advertising laws that are nationally consistent, constitutional and uphold freedom of speech.
Signatories to the open letter include former political party leaders and politicians, Dr John Hewson, Cheryl Kernot and Michael Beahan; former supreme court judges, the Hon Anthony Whealy QC, the Hon Paul Stein AM QC and the Hon David Harper AM QC, as well as barristers, community leaders, business people and other prominent Australians.
Ex-Barclays executive Stephen Jones says he apologised over alleged sexist remarks referred to in court documents
The boss of the banking lobby group UK Finance has resigned just weeks before his alleged sexist remarks about the financier Amanda Staveley are due to be revealed in the high court.
Stephen Jones, a senior Barclays executive during the financial crisis who became the first chief executive of UK Finance in 2017, said he had also apologised to Staveley and the body’s staff about the comments, which were made as the bank scrambled to save itself from nationalisation in 2008.
Senior Morrison government ministers have flagged shorter quarantine periods for international students and business travellers as part of a suite of measures to reopen Australia to international travel.
On Sunday, the health minister, Greg Hunt, confirmed that modifications to the existing mandatory two-week hotel quarantine could be enacted in addition to travel bubbles with safe countries, such as New Zealand, which would not require quarantine.
Watchdog fears that social media giant’s takeover of Giphy may reduce competition
The UK’s competition regulator has opened an investigation into the proposed $400m (£320m) takeover of gif search engine Giphy by Facebook amid fears that the acquisition may reduce competition in the UK.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is inviting comments about Facebook’s purchase of a company that currently provides gif search across many of the social network’s competitors, including Twitter and the messaging service Signal.
Three-phased plan for Brexit border checks welcomed as UK formally rejects extension to transition period
Full border controls on goods entering the UK will not apply until July next year the government has announced, as it formally notified the EU it does not want an extension to the transition period.
The announcement of a three-phased plan for Brexit border checks was welcomed by industry leaders but represents the most dramatic change to international trading since 1993 when the single market was introduced.
Britain’s three biggest airlines have filed papers in the high court to seek an urgent judicial review of the government’s quarantine laws, which they say are having a devastating effect on tourism and the wider economy.
British Airways, easyJet and Ryanair say the rules, which came into effect on Monday and require passengers arriving from abroad to self-isolate at a single address for 14 days, are flawed and will cost thousands of jobs.
Dow Jones loses more than 1,800 points while S&P down 5% after US coronavirus infections hit 2m
Stock markets tumbled in the US and Europe on Thursday amid growing fears over the long-term economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
The sell off started after the US labor department announced another 1.5 million people had filed for unemployment benefits and the number of coronavirus infections passed 2m even as states across the US continued to relax their quarantine measures.
Carolyn Fairbairn says most UK businesses cannot prepare for no-deal during Covid-19 crisis
Business leaders have pleaded with the government not to walk away from Brexit talks without a deal after Michael Gove claimed the Confederation of British Industry supported no extension to the transition period.
The CBI’s director general, Carolyn Fairbairn, said to crash out without a deal would be a “major block to recovery”.
Anglo-Dutch conglomerate denies U-turn after finally choosing the UK capital over Dutch city as its HQ
Unilever has picked London as its home in an about-face on the company’s 2018 decision to “go Dutch” which was abandoned after a revolt by British shareholders.
Despite a fresh internal review that this time selected London rather than Rotterdam as the location of its headquarters, the Unilever chairman, Nils Andersen, insisted it was not a flip-flop but a pragmatic way to complete an overdue overhaul of its unwieldy corporate structure.
Exclusive: WA minister gave consent to BHP plan just three days after Juukan Gorge site was blown up by Rio Tinto in a move that has horrified the public
Mining giant BHP Billiton is poised to destroy at least 40 – and possibly as many as 86 – significant Aboriginal sites in the central Pilbara to expand its $4.5bn South Flank iron ore mining operation, even though its own reports show it is aware that the traditional owners are deeply opposed to the move.
In documents seen by Guardian Australia, a BHP archaeological survey identified rock shelters that were occupied between 10,000 and 15,000 years ago and noted that evidence in the broader area showed “occupation of the surrounding landscape has been ongoing for approximately 40,000 years”.