World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk

---

• The 10 best films of 2013, No 1 – The Act of Killing
• United Nations base in South Sudan stormed
• New York City puts e-cigarettes under smoking ban
• Operation Sovereign Borders briefing: 20 December 2013 – full audio
• Clive Palmer's Galilee Basin mine given green light by Greg Hunt
• Monkeys and Moon Rovers and Mars…Oh My?
• The best albums of 2013: No 1 – Yeezus by Kanye West
• Time Out axes LGBT section – a high price to pay for 'free'
• HIV drugs subsidy: regulatory barrier to be removed, granting broader access
• Robin Thicke named sexist of the year
• Utopia (John Pilger) – TV review
• Joe Hockey appoints former Liberal MP to foreign investment advisory job
• Riot squad swoop on suspect outside NSW parliament - video
• YMCA managers may not be fit to run child-safe organisation, inquiry hears
• Scott Morrison on asylum health claims: David Marr video report
• Philippines mayor shot dead in airport attack
• Emissions cuts: Coalition considers new regulations to help Direct Action
• Greg Hunt misses deadline to send vessel to monitor Japanese whaling
• Stolen generation: WA family loses bid for compensation
• Man accused of killing South Korean student to spend Christmas in jail
• Refugee health matters – adequate screenings should be implemented now | Nicholas Talley
• Priest who sexually preyed on girls for three decades jailed for four years
• What are our children's participation certificates good for? | Ranjana Srivastava
• NSW parliament standoff: police feared man would ignite liquid
• Rabbit-Proof Fence: rewatching classic Australian films

The 10 best films of 2013, No 1 – The Act of Killing Posted: 20 Dec 2013 02:00 AM PST Peter Bradshaw introduces our favourite film of 2013, Joshua Oppenheimer's The Act of Killing. A documentary on the Indonesian mass-killings of the 1960s, Oppenheimer uses his brutal and brilliant film to invite the cinephile killers of the Suharto era re-enact their crimes for the camera • The 10 best films of 2013, No 2: The Great Beauty • More from the 10 best films of 2013 Indonesia's military coup in 1965 ushered in the rule of Major General Suharto, after a purge during which approximately half a million people were murdered as alleged communists by paramilitaries and mobsters. The memory of this mass slaughter is reawakened by documentarian Joshua Oppenheimer in a remarkable and at times unwatchably explicit film, which tracks down the ageing and entirely unrepentant perpetrators and invites them to re-enact the most grisly escapades in the style of their favourite movies. It is a situationist nightmare which flings the evil in our faces — and finally in their faces, too. Apart from everything else, Oppenheimer shows that unlike the wholesale brutalities in, say, Cambodia or Bosnia or Rwanda, where there has been a flawed but reasonably well-understood institutional attempt to come to terms with the past, the deaths in Indonesia are not officially considered anything to be ashamed of. There is no historical process. Nobody is reassessing or reconsidering the deaths — other than with a warm nostalgic glow. The people involved have grown to old age as part of modern Indonesia's governing class, and the paramilitary tradition in Indonesia continues to flourish. The Act Of Killing is a Marat/Sade for our times. Just as Peter Weiss's play imagined the imprisoned Marquis De Sade leading the asylum inmates in a dramatisation of Jean-Paul Marat's assassination, so Oppenheimer has found some of the grinningly cheerful killers, now grey-haired grandpas, and persuaded them to revive their most atrocious crimes of torture and mayhem in the styles of the gangster-flicks, Westerns, war movies and musicals which they adore. They are only too happy and delighted to do it. Oppenheimer gives them more than enough rope to hang themselves. A "victim" is despatched to heaven in a bizarre, dream-like musical number with Born Free playing in the background. A brutal interrogation scene is acted out, with the old guys themselves, as excitable as little kids, dressed up as 30s-style mobsters in fedoras. The murderous bully who stars in this film is Anwar Congo, a racketeer who with his crew ran local cinemas: hence his interest in the movies. He and his associates killed hundreds; now they dress up in various bizarre costumes and helpfully describe everything they did. Merely re-enacting these violent events is visibly too much for some of the participants, playing the victims, on whom the awful truth is beginning to dawn. Despite or even because of the extravagant absurdity of this bizarre pantomime, the reality of what went on begins to dawn on the perpetrators. A conventional documentary film-maker might challenge these men upfront with what he or she considers to be their crimes and give them a chance to answer back: or in response to silence, he or she might track them down, shove cameras and microphones in their faces which would be duly shoved aside by the angry old killers. Not here. The bad guys are the willing participants: they even sort of know that they are the bad guys — in the sense that the bad guy was always the most charismatic figure in any movie, and they consider themselves to be the buccaneering soldiers of fortune who did some enjoyable dirty work in the war against communism. The idea of movie playacting moreover gratifies their own tendency not to take the idea of guilt at all seriously. Yet fascinatingly, and sensationally, these film re-enactments have entirely the opposite effect. As the movie proceeds, the tension builds. Will these people realise what we realise? Will they twig, on a simple level, how they are going to be represented in the film? Finally, there is an intestinal explosion of horror. It is a gut-churning film: and a radical dive into history. More on the 10 best films of 2013 • The 10 best films of 2013, No 2: The Great Beauty • More from the 10 best films of 2013 Documentary Indonesia Peter Bradshaw theguardian.com © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

United Nations base in South Sudan stormed Posted: 19 Dec 2013 11:58 PM PST Deaths blamed on gang who invaded base where civilians were sheltering, while Obama calls for end to violence Three United Nations peacekeepers from India were killed when a base sheltering civilians in South Sudan was stormed on Thursday, officials have said. The compound of the UN mission in Bor, Akobo, was besieged by local youths from the Nuer community, intent on revenge for alleged targeted killings of their kinsmen in the capital, Juba. Witnesses in Akobo, in South Sudan's restive Jonglei state, said the perimeter was overrun and civilians, government officials from the country's most populous tribe, the Dinka, and UN peacekeepers were among the casualties. India's UN ambassador, Asoke Mukerji, said three of his country's troops were killed. It was the first announcement of UN personnel killed in this week's upsurge of ethnic-based violence. After the announcement by Mukerji at a meeting on UN peacekeeping, his Pakistani counterpart, Masood Khan, asked for a minute of silence and diplomats rose to pay tribute to the fallen soldiers. Mukerji said that "unfortunately, just this very morning such militia groups have targeted and killed three soldiers from India in South Sudan". Foreign nationals still in South Sudan crowded the airport in the capital, Juba, trying to escape. Britain's Foreign Office (FCO) said that after an air evacuation of some UK nationals on Thursday, a second plane would arrive on Friday. "We strongly advise all British nationals in South Sudan to leave the country if they can do so safely. You may have difficulty leaving in the event of a further deterioration in security," the FCO warned in a statement. "British nationals choosing to remain in South Sudan should remain alert to the local security situation, monitor the media and stay in a safe location." In Washington, Barack Obama issued a statement saying the conflict threatened to derail progress South Sudan has been making since gaining independence. "Inflammatory rhetoric and targeted violence must cease," the US president said. "All sides must listen to the wise counsel of their neighbors, commit to dialogue and take immediate steps to urge calm and support reconciliation." The UN has called on Yoweri Museveni, president of neighbouring Uganda to urgently mediate, while emergency flights have been laid on to help evacuate aid workers, diplomats and expats. A Nuer-led rebel militia, which claims its community is under attack by the government of South Sudan, has seized Bor, one of the country's most strategically important towns. The militia made up of military mutineers from the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) has been raised under the command of the defected General, Peter Gadet, who believes his own tribe, the Nuer, are under attack. After the storming of the UN base, Gadet said he would intervene to prevent further killings. "It's an important distinction that the Akobo attack was not carried out by the armed opposition but by local youths," said Casie Copeland, a South Sudan expert with the Brussels-based monitor the International Crisis Group. As fighting in the world's newest nation has erupted in new areas beyond the capital, Juba, disturbing testimony has emerged pointing to civilian casualties and ethnically-targeted killings. Since Wednesday, the heaviest clashes have come in Bor, the main town in the notoriously restive Jonglei state which is criss-crossed by some of the young country's most aggravated ethnic fault-lines. Civilians had taken refuge with peacekeepers at the United Nations base in Bor where an unknown number of casualties were being treated. "All the refugees are in this compound," said a witness before the attack, who was also inside but asked not to be named. "We're hearing shooting in the town, there is shooting everywhere." He said that children were among the dead and wounded brought to the base. Peacekeepers had remained inside the UN compound while fighting raged outside. "Outside they're burning houses and looting, no-one can leave the compound," he said. Since clashes broke out in Juba on Sunday fighting has occurred in half of the country's ten states. Victims and witnesses told the New York-based monitor, Human Rights Watch, that government soldiers and police have been interrogating people on the street in Juba about their ethnicity and deliberately shooting ethnic Nuer. "The awful accounts of killings in Juba may only be the tip of the iceberg," said HRW's Daniel Bekele. Much of the fighting has pitted government forces loyal to the ethnic Dinka president, Salva Kiir, against soldiers and civilians from the Nuer community. The first flights out of South Sudan's capital reached neighbouring Kenya on Wednesday night where terrified escapees described hit squads going house-to-house in Juba. "People think it's getting better," said aid worker Mo Ali who had been in the country for four years. "But it's like a cancer, you think you're just about to get some part of it sorted out and something else springs up." He said he had seen snipers just 50 feet from where he was staying: "You could smell the gunshots… and hear the shockwaves of what sounded like tank-fire or mortar-fire." Doctors at Juba's teaching hospital said they were treating nearly 300 people for gunshot wounds, most of them young men, although not all in military uniform. Its facilities have been overrun, they said, and the tiny mortuary was filled with decomposing bodies. The Red Cross and other organisations donated 250 body bags but were told that more were needed. Meanwhile, respected former government minister Jok Madut Jok said South Sudan was facing a possible slide into civil war if political leaders did not agree to urgent talks. Having just returned from an academic post in the US, he said in an open letter that the violence had been triggered by infighting in the multi-ethnic presidential guard, also known as the Tigers. Guard members from South Sudan's two largest communities -- the Dinka and the second most populous, the Nuer -- had an argument that turned into a shooting match. When Nuer members of the Tigers climbed onto a roof adjacent to the president's residence and started to fire into it, they were hit in return with artillery fire. The attack on President Kiir's compound prompted accusations of an attempted coup. A roundup of prominent critics of the government, including at least eleven former cabinet members began and the president blamed prominent Nuer politician, Riek Machar, the man he sacked six months ago from the vice president's job. After furious denunciations from Mr Kiir, reprisals have followed against the Nuer people in Juba. Soldiers dragged the Nuer pastor, Reverend Simon Nyang Lam, out of his house in the capital and killed him. "He thought he would be ok because he was a pastor," a relative told HRW. Other witnesses described how seven Nuer men were killed in the compound where they were sheltering. Some of them died when soldiers shot into the building, others were gunned down as they climbed through a window and one man was shot dead as he hid in a water barrel. South Sudan Africa Daniel Howden theguardian.com © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

New York City puts e-cigarettes under smoking ban Posted: 19 Dec 2013 11:54 PM PST Measure means 'vaping' will be prohibited anywhere that smoking conventional tobacco products is banned

Operation Sovereign Borders briefing: 20 December 2013 – full audio Posted: 19 Dec 2013 11:50 PM PST The minister for immigration and border protection, Scott Morrison, and the Operation Sovereign Borders Commander, Lieutenant General Angus Campbell, give their weekly operational update.

Clive Palmer's Galilee Basin mine given green light by Greg Hunt Posted: 19 Dec 2013 11:41 PM PST Environment minister approves Queensland project despite conservationists' claims it would wipe out half of the 8,000-hectare Bimblebox Nature Refuge Bridie Jabour Oliver Milman

Monkeys and Moon Rovers and Mars…Oh My? Posted: 19 Dec 2013 11:30 PM PST Audra J. Wolfe: Outer space is getting more and more crowded. Should the US and Europe be worried? Audra J Wolfe

The best albums of 2013: No 1 – Yeezus by Kanye West Posted: 19 Dec 2013 11:30 PM PST The album that won our poll of critics was also among the year's most divisive, as Kanye West set out to confront, not conciliate • See all our Best Albums of 2013 coverage here In all the many interviews he has given recently, distracted by the need to engage with the substantive issue of why he is not currently the creative director of Yves Saint Laurent, Kanye West hasn't talked much about Yeezus. He has discussed some of the concepts therein: the idea, articulated in the song New Slaves, that rich black Americans of the modern age are still exploited by a white power structure (one whose most pernicious behaviours, you are led to believe, occur in houses of haute couture); or the belief that because West is Steve Jobs, Walt Disney and Bill Gates combined, it's OK for him to rip off Billie Holliday's Strange Fruit for a jam about disputed alimony. Of the rest, not much has been said and, therefore, the role of Will Ferrell in Yeezus has passed largely unremarked. Ferrell, playing Chazz Michael Michaels in Blades of Glory, is sampled halfway through Niggas in Paris, a song from West's Watch the Throne project of 2011 and a track that closely matches the styles he would develop in Yeezus. "I don't even know what that means!" wails Chazz's ice-dance partner as he is told they will only dance to My Humps by Black Eyed Peas in future. "Nobody knows what it means," replies Chazz, "but it's provocative, gets the people going." That's Yeezus in a nutshell. While much discussion has been made of the West persona, both in public and on record, the most immediately provocative element of Yeezus is its sound. In the very first second of opener On Sight, you are left alone in a field of distortion, a squelch of 303ish acid that rolls up and down a scale before settling into a loop of abrasive snarls. That sets the tone for what follows. There's the whining, flared synthesisers of Send It Up, the distorted glam-rock stomp of Black Skinhead, and the neutered drone of I'm in It. Most hip-hop and pop this year has had the club in its mind, all 4/4 rhythms and extended technicolour drops. Yeezus was apparently conceived for a BDSM dungeon. Reading on mobile? Listen to Yeezus on Spotify here That is one of the ways in which his sixth solo album divided West's public. For some listeners, the sound is simply too unpleasant. For others it's a betrayal of the soul-infused style that made his name. Even these responses acknowledge that Yeezus is difficult to ignore: once heard, it's hardly forgotten. When it comes to the lyrical content, meanwhile, people hear an egocentric fit played out on record, the undeserved pique of someone genuinely angry at the absence of his damn croissants. Others hear lyrics full of grandstanding and aggression (quite frequently sexual), a deadened desensitisation, and conclude they want no part. That Yeezus might be a work of art deliberately designed to provoke such responses doesn't seem to get much consideration. "Yeezus" – as in the character doing the rapping – is a construct as much as any beat on the album. It may be constructed from parts of West's psyche, for sure, but it is also constructed by him. Any conflation of the character with the man denies West the right to create art. It also unwittingly drags listeners (let's face it, white ones) into the very issues of black American identity that West is keen to discuss. The grand provocations in Yeezus are matched, step for step, by its craftsmanship. There are only 10 songs and each one, as deliberately discomfiting as it might be, contains the essential properties of a pop song. This is not by accident and for those who could endure the style, or even enjoy it, there were powerful hooks and melodies to latch on to and emulate awkwardly while waiting for the bus (try singing the tune to Send It Up without looking like a weasel drinking vinegar). The process by which these songs were created is already the subject of a semi-mythology. First West would solicit music from, it seems, all the world's upcoming producers. He'd then strip them for parts, just as earlier hip-hop producers would mine funk seven-inches for samples. These songs would be reconfigured, vocals added, perhaps – Frank Ocean might be good for 25 seconds at the end of a track – in the company of more renowned producers. Their work was then further, finally revised by Rick Rubin in his cliffside retreat in California. By that point the sound was so refined, so reduced, that it was like a classical French stock. It was bouilla-bass. If that pun is terrible, then it's only fitting, because there are tonnes of similar efforts on Yeezus ("I'm a rap-lic priest", he says on I'm In It, "I be speaking Swag-hili"). There's also endless innuendo – "Yeezus just rose again" – and the odd wry confession: "I slightly scratched your Corolla [pause], OK I smashed your Corolla." That is to say there's a sense of humour in there and a love of wordplay, too. In turn, that is matched by an attention to the key part of the rapper's craft: twinning sound and meaning with meter to best effect. The final verse of New Slaves, which rails against entrenched white privilege, is unsettling and incoherent but boy is it powerful, pulling you along on its staccato rhythms and emphatic repetitions. All its provocations mean that Yeezus will never be as beloved by as many people as, say, The College Dropout. But I haven't been able to stop thinking about it for six months. I've listened again and again, found new details, new jokes, new coinages that make me puzzle about the character who's uttering them. Yeezus is undoubtedly the work of one of the greatest creative minds working today. The fact that he's messing with you throughout only makes it more exhilarating. Kanye West Hip-hop Rap Urban music Pop and rock Paul MacInnes theguardian.com © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Time Out axes LGBT section – a high price to pay for 'free' Posted: 19 Dec 2013 11:25 PM PST Paul Burston, the editor of the section, has been given the push in an act that is short-sighted and a huge loss to London Some people thought that Time Out going free last year, and abandoning any pretence at comprehensive listings, was the end of an era. But it was still recognisably the same magazine: irreverent, funny, gently subversive, and a tireless cheerleader for London in all its cultural diversity. But this does feel like the end of an era. Paul Burston, for 20 years the gay (now LGBT) editor of Time Out, has announced that he had been given the push in the latest wave of cost-cutting, along with the LGBT section and other "smaller" sections such as Dance and Classical. Is it a sign of the times, that we no longer "need" an LGBT section; that, with even a Tory prime minister pushing through same-sex marriage, equality has been fully achieved? Or is it merely a sign that, as more and more publications go free, they will increasingly focus only on where the ad spend is? With Russia cracking down on homosexuality and India's Supreme Court recently recriminalising gay sex, with a Stonewall survey in 2012 of 1,600 gay, lesbian and bisexual teenagers in the UK showing that half had suffered homophobic bullying at school and that two fifths of those had contemplated suicide, it's clearly not the former. It seems to me extraordinarily short-sighted to axe the LGBT section; in the words of Oscar Wilde, it's the act of people who "know the price of everything and the value of nothing". For decades its recommendations have guided people, perhaps unsure of their sexuality or new to London, to safe spaces in the capital. More than that, it has reassured them that they are as normal and as numerous as lovers of music, dance or grainy subtitled films. The singer David McAlmont was just one of those who wrote online tributes as the news broke, saying that as a "recently arrived closet case from South America … the listings led me to a gay support group and a new life". I must confess an interest here. I employed Burston when I was editor of Time Out in the 90s. During Paul's tenure, Time Out won a Stonewall award for LGBT coverage, and he himself was shortlisted for Journalist of the Year by the European Diversity Awards and by Stonewall. Ironically, as his departure was announced, it was also announced that his gay-themed literary salon, Polari, had won LGBT cultural event of the year. Hopefully, Time Out's loss will be someone else's gain as other papers clamour for his services, but it feels like more than just Time Out's loss: it's London's loss. Time Out was once more than just a business. It was a champion of the underdog, a righter of wrongs. For many Londoners, introduced to films, bars or, yes, gay clubs they might not otherwise have discovered, it was a way of life. I know the magazine has difficult choices to make in a competitive marketplace. I understand that former editor and recently appointed chief executive Tim Arthur has the respect of his staff – including Paul – and that without him these cuts might have been deeper still. But this serves as yet another warning, in both online and print journalism: there can be a high price to pay for "free". Time Out Magazines Newspapers & magazines Gay rights London theguardian.com © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

HIV drugs subsidy: regulatory barrier to be removed, granting broader access Posted: 19 Dec 2013 11:12 PM PST HIV groups have convinced the government to make antiretroviral drugs more widely available via the pharmaceutical benefits scheme Helen Davidson

Robin Thicke named sexist of the year Posted: 19 Dec 2013 11:04 PM PST End Violence Against Women Coalition says Blurred Lines video and remarks about degrading women make singer clear winner

Utopia (John Pilger) – TV review Posted: 19 Dec 2013 11:00 PM PST Nearly two decades after The Secret Country, John Pilger is still angry about the treatment of Indigenous Australians. After you watch his film, you'll understand why In 1985, Australian journalist John Pilger made The Secret Country, a film about his homeland's mistreatment of its indigenous people in which he suggested Australia was effectively running an apartheid regime. Nearly 30 years later, Pilger has made Utopia (ITV), a film that covers much the same ground, though with understandably less subtlety and rather more anger, as nothing much has changed. Indeed, as white Australia has emerged as one of the richest nations on the planet thanks to its mineral resources, the indigenous people are worse off than many of those living in developing countries. The incidence of trachoma among Indigenous Australians is among the highest in the world. The Utopia of the title is not Pilger's irony. It is an Australian irony – the name of one of the poorest and desolate areas of the continent, 200 miles north of Alice Springs where the local health centre for indigenous people has no running water, the lone toilet is rancid and snakes can get through the cracks in the corrugated-iron walls. Just next door is a large, fenced-off house with 18 air-conditioning units attached where the white district commissioner lives. The irony didn't end there as the Australian minister for indigenous health, Warren Snowdon, who insisted he was proud of what he was doing and that Pilger's questions were puerile, was a dead ringer for Alf Garnett. There were moments when watching this film felt like being smacked about with a sledgehammer. I got the point early on and the repeated flicking from the wealth and complacency of white Australia to the poverty and degradation of the Indigenous Australians became wearing. But since gentle persuasion hasn't yet managed to persuade millions of people that accusing Indigenous Australian communities of harbouring paedophile rings, imprisoning indigenous people at 10 times the rate apartheid South Africa imprisoned black people or that sterilisation of Indigenous Australians isn't the answer, then bludgeoning may be a natural response on Pilger's part. And yet it was the small details and the asides that had as much impact. The Australian war memorial in Canberra that has blanked out any reference to the frontier wars between the white settlers and the Indigenous Australians that went on for the best part of 150 years; not a single dead Indigenous Australian from that era gets a mention. "I guess Australia isn't ready to confront some parts of its history," said a guide apologetically. The white Aussie declaring we're all Australian now, to which a passerby said: "I'm not. I'm Irish." The former concentration camp on Rottnest Island just off the coast of Western Australia, which has now been turned into a luxury spa. I hope the guests sleep well in the $200-a-night room in which 51 Indignenous Australians were held before their execution. For those who like their jollity to be strictly enforced at Christmas, the BBC has long been the TV channel of choice. The 12 Drinks of Christmas (BBC2) had the feel of a show that had been dreamed up over a boozy Christmas lunch and was far more fun to make than to watch. Alexander Armstrong and Giles Coren – or Xander and Giley as they call themselves – are best friends and brothers-in-law who spend every Christmas competing with each other to provide the best booze. Apparently. I can't believe for a moment that they do behave like this in real life as otherwise their wives would have dumped them both long ago. Nor could I believe that Xander spends Christmas saying, "Christmas isn't Christmas without a nice glass of port in front of a log fire", or Giley drives a white van with a flag of St George to Calais on a booze cruise. But every Christmas show needs its Christmas schtick and I'm sure they both did very well out of it. Xander spent his Christmas money on a £50 bottle of something and Giley spent his £20 on something else. I cared even less about the outcome than they did. I was more interested in the huge country pile that was used for the filming. If it does actually belong to Xander or Giley, as the show suggested, then there's even more money in stocking-fillers than I imagined. The biggest surprise was the carol singers who turned up at the end to sing for the lords of the manor. What was Vicky Pryce doing dressing up as the lady vicar? Still rather Xander and Giley than Alex Polizzi's Christmas Fix (BBC2). Polizzi used to be a vaguely credible TV presenter, but someone has given her a makeover and told her to push herself slightly too close to the camera and flirt suggestively. So off she went, thrusting herself into a whole heap of over-the-top decorations and table settings that she too felt no Christmas should be without. It was wrong on so many levels. Whatever Christmas the BBC is having, it isn't mine. Television Indigenous Australians Australia Asia Pacific John Pilger John Crace theguardian.com © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Joe Hockey appoints former Liberal MP to foreign investment advisory job Posted: 19 Dec 2013 10:43 PM PST Former South Australian MP Patrick Secker to take up $49,000-a-year part-time job on body that advises the treasurer Daniel Hurst

Riot squad swoop on suspect outside NSW parliament - video Posted: 19 Dec 2013 10:41 PM PST Police storm the suspect's car using gas and crowbars when the man allegedly produced a lighter

YMCA managers may not be fit to run child-safe organisation, inquiry hears Posted: 19 Dec 2013 10:41 PM PST Evidence on how the YMCA handled the employment of Jonathan Lord shows systemic failures raises 'serious question'

Scott Morrison on asylum health claims: David Marr video report Posted: 19 Dec 2013 10:21 PM PST David Marr reports on the lack of answers forthcoming from Scott Morrison David Marr Christian Bennett

Philippines mayor shot dead in airport attack Posted: 19 Dec 2013 10:12 PM PST Ukol Talumpa, who had survived previous assassination attempts, and his wife among four killed at Manila terminal

Emissions cuts: Coalition considers new regulations to help Direct Action Posted: 19 Dec 2013 09:59 PM PST Greg Hunt's green paper asks for ideas to complement the emissions reduction fund, which begins in June 2014 Lenore Taylor

Greg Hunt misses deadline to send vessel to monitor Japanese whaling Posted: 19 Dec 2013 09:57 PM PST Government’s monitoring vessel diverted to Operation Sovereign Borders as Japanese ‘kill ships’ hone in on whale sanctuary Oliver Milman

Stolen generation: WA family loses bid for compensation Posted: 19 Dec 2013 09:50 PM PST Supreme court rejects case of Donald and Sylvia Collard and their seven children, forcibly removed between 1958 and 1961

Man accused of killing South Korean student to spend Christmas in jail Posted: 19 Dec 2013 09:17 PM PST Sanghyun Hwang is accused of murdering Min Tae Kim, who disappeared after going to exchange $15,000 for his return home

Refugee health matters – adequate screenings should be implemented now | Nicholas Talley Posted: 19 Dec 2013 09:11 PM PST Nicholas Talley: Processing asylum seekers is an immigration decision, but ensuring the health of these vulnerable people is a human rights issue Nicholas Talley

Priest who sexually preyed on girls for three decades jailed for four years Posted: 19 Dec 2013 08:21 PM PST Father Finian Egan, 79, who 'escaped punishment for 50 years', will be 83 when he is eligible for parole

What are our children's participation certificates good for? | Ranjana Srivastava Posted: 19 Dec 2013 07:58 PM PST Ranjana Srivastava: In real life, there are no participation certificates – which is why I hope my own children will never confuse participation with winning Ranjana Srivastava

NSW parliament standoff: police feared man would ignite liquid Posted: 19 Dec 2013 07:34 PM PST Premier Barry O’Farrell and treasurer Mike Baird were both at parliament when the threat was made Bridie Jabour Helen Davidson

Rabbit-Proof Fence: rewatching classic Australian films Posted: 19 Dec 2013 07:19 PM PST This drama dealing with the stolen generations spoke an emotional truth that was impossible to ignore Luke Buckmaster

You are subscribed to email updates from World news and comment from the Guardian | theguardian.com To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610