Your noon Briefing: Trust no-one, I don’t trust Putin, says PM
Welcome to your noon digest of what’s been making news and what to watch for.
Hello readers. Here is your noon roundup of today’s top stories and a long read for lunchtime.
‘I don’t trust Putin’: PM
Malcolm Turnbull says he doesn’t trust Russian President Vladimir Putin and has contradicted US president Donald Trump on the question of Russian meddling in the US election, declaring the evidence of US intelligence agencies is “very compelling”. The Prime Minister was responding to comments by President Trump in Finland, where he publicly challenged his own intelligence agencies over Moscow interference in the 2016 presidential election, suggesting he trusted the word of Vladimir Putin over US agents.
“I find the evidence that has been produced by the American intelligence community to be very compelling. But obviously there is a difference of opinion inside America.”
Malcolm Turnbull
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‘I’m not an imposter’
Malcolm Turnbull has accepted that the Liberal candidate in the Queensland Labor seat of Longman made an “innocent mistake’’ after being outed for wrongly claiming to have been awarded a medal for distinguished service. Trevor Ruthenberg, a former state MP, today denied he was a “military impostor’’ after providing information to the Queensland Parliament that he had been awarded the Australian Service Medal. Mr Ruthenberg never received the distinction and instead received the Australian Defence Medal, given to all military personnel after serving four years.
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‘Driverless car’
A British caver who helped rescue 12 boys from a Thai cave said he may take legal action against Elon Musk after the entrepreneur called him a “pedo” in comments that sent Tesla shares tumbling. Tesla shares were down 3.01 percent in New York about 15 minutes before the closing bell after the latest odd controversy to engulf Musk. Hugo Rifkind of The Times concludes Musk is his own driverless car.
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‘Agent’ charged
A Russian woman working in the US as a gun-rights activist has been charged with being a covert Kremlin agent while living in Washington. Maria Butina, 29, is being held without bail on charges of gathering intelligence on American officials and political organizations and working to establish back-channel lines of communications for the Kremlin at the direction of a “high level official in the Russian government”.
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ABC panned
Warren Mundine has slammed a “hypocritical and disgraceful” response from the ABC after it distanced itself from commentator Paul Bongiorno and his reference to the indigenous businessman with the racial slur “Uncle Tom”. In a statement provided to The Australian yesterday, the public broadcaster said: “Mr Bongiorno is not an ABC employee; his Twitter account is not an ABC account; any tweets are Mr Bongiorno’s own.”
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The long read: From Russia with passion
The best of modern World Cups? After Sunday’s final, perhaps we need to tweak that to the most wonderfully doolally, writes Matt Dickinson of The Times. A tournament you dared not look away from for fear of missing something extraordinary had a final played out to a soundtrack of thunder and lightning above Moscow, and a trophy presentation in a downpour for France, the world champions, that was almost biblical. It was an appropriately dramatic, a
lmost cinematic, climax.
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Comment of the day
“I’m a retired officer and I’ve known Big Trev for nine years. He’s an honest bloke trying to do the best for his community. Given the close terminology used around many honours and awards it’s easy to be human and make a mistake.”
Michael, in response to ‘Longman Liberal candidate Trevor Ruthenberg made innocent mistake: PM’
China’s great wall of silence
China deliberately concealed information about the coronavirus, and now it is fighting an inquiry. So what is Beijing hiding?
Your noon Briefing
Your 2-minute digest of the day’s top stories.