Good morning, this is Helen Sullivan bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Thursday 18 July.
Top stories
The Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is a public health emergency of international concern, the World Health Organization has declared, calling for more funds and international support to close it down. The second biggest Ebola outbreak ever, after the 2014-16 epidemic in West Africa, has reached a critical point with the diagnosis of a case in Goma, a city of 2 million people, which is a transport hub on the border with Rwanda. Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director general, said WHO is working on a new plan to control the epidemic which would cost “hundred of millions” of dollars. “It is time for the world to take notice and redouble our efforts. We need to work together in solidarity with the DRC to end this outbreak and build a better health system,” said Tedros.
Australia should dramatically decrease its oil use to ward off a potential crisis, the Australia Institute has warned, listing options such as tightening fuel-efficiency standards, introducing electric vehicle targets and increasing public transport use. As of December 2018, Australia held only 18 days of petrol, 22 days of diesel and 23 days of jet fuel reserves, according to federal government figures. In the event of disruption, emergency powers to ration fuel stocks would take up to three weeks to kick in. “Australia is an international laggard when it comes to fuel efficiency,” the Australia Institute’s energy program director, Richie Merzian, told the Guardian. “Weak fuel standards and an absence of a national electric vehicle policy leave Australia among the least fuel-efficient fleets in the OECD.”
State and territory governments have presided over the loss of more than 20,000 public housing units in a decade, marking a “considerable change” as control over social housing is increasingly handed to non-profits. A new study, released by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare on Thursday, found the declining number of publicly owned homes was offset by a 55,470 increase in homes run by non-profit providers. Although overall social housing, which includes government and non-profit-run stock, increased by about 27,401 – or about 6% – over the 10 years to 2017-18, the study found the increase had “not kept pace with the growth in households”. That meant about a quarter of new public housing tenants in 2017-18 who were classified as in “greatest need” had been on the waiting list longer than 12 months, with 13% waiting longer than two years to be housed.
World
Footage of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein at a party has surfaced after the president tried to distance himself from the wealthy financier who was arrested earlier this month over the alleged sex trafficking of minors. The friendly exchange between the pair happens while they are surrounded by young women and shows Trump pointing out women to Epstein.
Drug makers and distributors flooded the US with more than 75bn opioid pills as the country’s epidemic of painkiller addiction and deaths surged to record levels, according to previously secret data released by an American court.
The UK chancellor, Philip Hammond, has said it is “terrifying” that Boris Johnson ally Jacob Rees-Mogg believes a no-deal Brexit will boost the economy. Johnson, meanwhile, revealed his support for the European Union’s single market in “a pro-European” letter written the year before he decided to campaign for leave.
The owner of high street fashion chain Zara has announced that all of its collections will be made from 100% sustainable fabrics before 2025. Inditex – the world’s third largest apparel company – said its other brands, including Zara Home, Massimo Dutti and Pull&Bear, will follow suit.
Opinion and analysis
Stephanie Wood, the author of Fake, Guardian Australia’s new Unmissable book, says her story is far more than ‘lonely childless woman who fell for a con artist’. She writes that a “flim-flam man had led me to believe he was an affluent farmer and property developer. He had spurred me to think we might have a future together. He turned out to be nothing more than a fantasist, a small, hollow man with a great capacity to inflict suffering.”
The government’s tax plan will massively reduce the progressive nature of the tax system and also cause a large cut to the government tax base, writes Greg Jericho, but they will also increase inequality. Lower tax rates leading to lower tax revenue requiring lower government spending on services is the point of the policy, not a side effect. It will make for a very different Australia – one much less equal, and one where people will be expected to pay for services they currently take for granted will be provided by the public.
Sport
The 25-year-old Sydneysider Caleb Ewan has won the Tour de France stage 11, despite the Australian’s usual lead-out man, Jasper De Buyst, tumbling into a ditch a few kilometres from the finish. Ewan, who rides for the Lotto-Soudal team, has now won stages in all three Grand Tours, having led the peloton across the line in stage five of the 2015 Vuelta a España and done so three times in the Giro d’Italia, including twice this year.
The Socceroos will face some familiar foes on their path to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, after being drawn with Nepal, Jordan, Taiwan and Kuwait in the second stage of Asian qualifiers.
Thinking time: Why the moon landing shots are artistic masterpieces
Fifty years ago this week, a former navy pilot created one of the most revolutionary artistic masterpieces of the 20th century, one we have yet to fully assimilate. His name was Neil Armstrong and his astonishing act of creativity is a photograph of his Apollo 11 crewmate Buzz Aldrin standing on the Sea of Tranquillity on the moon. Not that you can see Aldrin’s face. His features and flesh are hidden inside a thickly padded white spacesuit, its visor reflecting the tiny figure of Armstrong himself, beside the gold-coloured legs of the lunar lander.
This effacement of Aldrin came about because Apollo astronauts wore visors lined with gold to protect their eyes from sunlight. Yet these reflective qualities are part of what makes this such a powerful, complex image, one in which we can see two lunar horizons. Behind Aldrin, the moon’s bright surface recedes to a blue horizon against the black void of space. Meanwhile, reflected and warped by the helmet, the other horizon stretches away behind Armstrong. The photographer has incorporated the making of the image into the image, to tell the story of something new in the universe: two human beings looking at each other across the dusty surface of an alien world.
Media roundup
The Sydney Morning Herald reveals that the number of outright homeowners in New South Wales has collapsed by a third over the past two decades. A personal tale: How GetUp and Unions tried to break me, is a headline on the Australian’s front page, with the Liberal backbencher Nicolle Flint McVeigh describing “a concerted attack to destroy me mentally” during the federal election. “He’ll be chuffed to bits”, declares the ABC after finding the author of a letter written in 1969, secured in a bottle and tossed into the Indian Ocean, which was discovered by a nine-year-old boy washed up on a South Australian beach on Wednesday.
Coming up
The prime minister, Scott Morrison, will attend a bush summit in Dubbo to discuss the drought.
The New Zealand prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, is in Melbourne to deliver a speech on how her government is dealing with an environment of growing uncertainty and declining trust in government. She will meet with the Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews.
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