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A deal freezing frontlines would be unacceptable for Serhiy Serdiuk, who was taken to Georgia in handcuffs with his family after refusing to teach the Russian curriculum

Earlier this year, Serhiy Serdiuk was deported fromRussia, along with his wife and daughter. He was given a 40-year ban from re-entering the country.

Serdiuk’s home town of Komysh-Zoria, in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, was part of the territory occupied in the first weeks of Russia’s full-scale invasion in spring 2022. According to Moscow, it is now part of Russia. And because Serdiuk, the headteacher of a local school, refused to work for the new authorities, they decided he had no place living there.

“I was born there, I’ve lived my whole life there, in the same place,” said Serdiuk, in a recent interview in the city of Zaporizhzhia, the regional capital still controlled by Kyiv, where he now lives. “Now I am kicked out of my own home and told I didn’t live in the country I thought I lived in? How is this possible?”

The deportation of Serdiuk and his family is part of a continuing “cleansing” operation of the occupied territories, which may accelerate if US-led attempts to push Russia and Ukraine into a peace deal result in the freezing of the current frontlines, solidifying Russian control over the territory Moscow has seized over the past three years.

In the early months of the invasion, Russian forces used lists to identify potentially troublesome pro-Ukrainian members of society in the occupied territories. Many werekidnapped, tortured and held in Russian jails. Perhaps wary of the cost and resources required to jail thousands more people, authorities have now employed a new tactic.

“There were cases when they just came to people and said, ‘It’s in your interests to disappear from here, or we’ll have to take you to the basement,’ and then people left by themselves,” Serdiuk recalled.

But in his case and some others the authorities did not leave it to chance. Ivan Fedorov, the governor of Zaporizhzhia region, estimated that “hundreds” of people had been deported from the occupied part of the region in recent months. Vladimir Putin signed a decree in March that stipulates “Ukrainian citizens who have no legal basis for living in the Russian Federation are obliged to leave” by 10 September, or take Russian citizenship.

Serdiuk was born in Komysh-Zoria, a small town home to around 2,000 people, and had lived there his whole life, except for a few years studying in nearby Berdiansk. He started working at the local school, which had about 240 pupils, in 1999, beginning as a maths teacher and in 2018 being made headteacher.

Komysh-Zoria was occupied, without major fighting, in the first days of the full-scale invasion, and by April 2022, the new Russian authorities called a meeting of the school’s 30 teachers, demanding that they open the school and teach the Russian curriculum. Serdiuk refused, and most of the teachers followed suit.

In the ensuing weeks, Russian soldiers came to Serdiuk’s home and tried to persuade him to open the school. First, they were polite. Then, the threats started: “If you don’t want all your employees to have house searches, tell them to go to work.” One PE teacher agreed to work for the Russians immediately, but most of the others held out, he said. His school remains closed, and students now attend schools in one of two nearby towns.

“I told them I’d never work for them and I kept to that,” said Serdiuk. For three years, he sat at home, unemployed, as Russian control solidified over the region.

At the end of 2023, Serdiuk was told that he and his family would be deported. They were given three days to prepare, and packed their possessions into a few suitcases, but then were left waiting for more than a month. Their passports had been seized so they could not leave of their own volition. Eventually, at the end of January, they were driven to the regional capital of Melitopol and then put in a minibus with another family. Each deportee was sat on a pair of seats, handcuffed to a guard sitting beside them.

The minibus drove for 20 hours until it reached the mountainous border between Russia and Georgia. Two drivers took turns at the wheel. At the border, the Ukrainians were handed back their passports and told to cross to the Georgian side. Serdiuk and his wife were given a 40-year ban from Russian territory; his 21-year-old daughter was given 50 years.

From Georgia, they flew to Moldova, then back into Ukraine and all the way to Zaporizhzhia, to arrive at a spot around 90 miles (140km) away from their homes. Serdiuk is now teaching private maths lessons in the city, and plans to find a job at a local school. “At least here I can talk normally and not be scared of every passing car,” he said.

But the forced deportation brings with it a lot of pain, most notably that he had to leave behind his mother, who has advanced dementia, in occupied territory. Before 2022, she had been taking medication to slow the progression of the condition, but after the invasion the family was unable to get the pills and the effect was swift and devastating.

“She can talk and walk but she can’t look after herself. It required constant vigilance, otherwise she would slip out of the house and walk back to the house where she was born,” said Serdiuk. When notice of the deportation came, Serdiuk drove his mother to his sister’s house and bade her farewell. He does not know if he will ever see her again.

During a long interview, Serdiuk used humour and sarcasm to offset the depressing reality, but the one time he became visibly emotional was when asked for his thoughts on possible plans to freeze the frontlines as part of a peace settlement.

The idea is something being pushed by the US, and many in Ukraine also support this, feeling that a temporary respite would be better than continuing the grinding, bloody fight. For Serdiuk, however, it would mean an unacceptable sacrifice. “How could I support this? How could I say that it’s fine that I was pushed out of my home and can’t go back?”

He also fears for his former pupils. While Russia has sent in new teachers to the occupied areas, Serdiuk said this mainly concerned bigger cities. In the small settlements of his district, most of the teachers remained local, he said, and might be trying to avoid some of the harsher aspects of the new Russian curriculum. However, he said that with the pressure to conform to the needs of the new authorities, the respite would only be temporary.

“They are demanding that there are portraits of Putin on the walls, that the children draw pictures and write wishes for their soldiers,” he said. “This all breaks the psychological balance of a child. A year ago we lived in Ukraine, and now Ukraine is bad and we are drawing pictures of our liberators? If we freeze this conflict, then in two or three years these children will already be lost.”

Syarhei Tsikhanouski arrested shortly after announcing candidacy in rigged 2020 election won by Lukashenko

One of the leaders of Belarus’s opposition movement, Syarhei Tsikhanouski, has beenreleased from jailafter being pardoned after almost five years behind bars.

His wife, the exiled politician Svetlana Tsikhanouskaya, who took over the opposition cause after his jailing, on Saturday shared a video of him smiling and embracing her after his release.

My husband Siarhei is free! It’s hard to describe the joy in my heart.Thank you, 🇺🇸@POTUS,@SPE_Kellogg,@JohnPCoale, DAS Christopher W. Smith,@StateDept& our 🇪🇺 allies, for all your efforts.We’re not done. 1150 political prisoners remain behind bars. All must be released.pic.twitter.com/MhngqBHFq3

The surprise move came hours after Donald Trump’s special envoy Keith Kellogg visited Minsk and met the authoritarian Belarusian leader,Alexander Lukashenko, in the highest-level contact between Washington and the Belarusian government since the brutal post-election crackdown in 2020.

In total, 14 Belarusian political prisoners were released on Saturday, the Nasha Niva newspaper said.

Tsikhanouski, a former blogger who galvanised anti-Lukashenko sentiment before the rigged 2020 presidential election, was arrested shortly after announcing his candidacy.

He was later sentenced to 18 years in what was widely seen as a politically motivated case of “inciting hatred and social unrest”.

His wife ran in his place and emerged as the leading opposition challenger before fleeing amid a sweeping crackdown to Lithuania, where she has since led efforts to resist the Lukashenko regime.

“My husband … is free! It’s hard to describe the joy in my heart,” Tsikhanouskaya wrote on X.

Tsikhanouskaya published a video clip showing her embracing her husband.

She thanked Trump and Keith Kellogg and “all European allies” for their efforts to get her husband released. “We’re not done. 1150 political prisoners remain behind bars. All must be released,” she added.

In the summer of 2020, Belarus had its largest protest to date, with more than 200,000 citizens flooding on to the streets to demonstrate the widely disputed president elections in which Lukashenko claimed to have secured 80% of the vote.

The violent crackdown by Lukashenko’s security forces turned him into even more of a pariah in the west, pushing him closer to Moscow and in effect transforming Belarus into a vassal state of Russia – an alliance that proved crucial forVladimir Putinwhen the country became a launch point for his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

But in the last year, Lukashenko’s regime has granted pardons to more than 250 political prisoners, a move some view as an attempt by him to ease Belarus’s international isolation.

Several high-profile political prisoners remain behind bars, including Maria Kolesnikova and Viktor Babariko.

In January, Lukashenko secured a seventh five-year term as Belarusian president in a resounding election victory that western governmentshave rejected as a sham.

Vessel to be transported to port where investigators will try to find cause of fatal sinking during storm

Salvage teams in Sicily say they have lifted Mike Lynch’s superyacht “fully and finally out of the water” for the first time sinceit sank last yearduring a storm, killing seven people including the tech tycoon and his teenage daughter.

The rusting hulk of the Bayesian, which ran into trouble off the coast of the Italian island in August last year, has been slowly raised from the seabed over the last three days. Covered with algae and mud, it was visible clear of the sea in the holding area of a yellow floating crane barge, a witness told the Associated Press.

The 56-metre (184ft) vessel is now expected to be transported to the port of Termini Imerese, where investigators will examine it as part of an inquiry into the cause of the sinking.

The operation to lift the Bayesian, which has cost approximately $30m (£22m), was made easier after the vessel’s 72-metre mast was detached using a remote-controlled cutting tool and placed on the seabed on Tuesday.

Eight steel lifting straps were used to support the hull upright and to form part of a steel wire lifting system to raise the vessel. Sea water was pumped from the hull as it was lifted.

TMC Maritime, a British-based consultancy, said the vessel would be held upright, out of the water, for checks and preparations for its final journey.

On Sunday, it is anticipated the floating crane platform will move the Bayesian to a special steel cradle at Termini Imerese.

The Bayesian was anchored just offshore near the port of Porticello, in the province of Palermo, when it sank during a violent storm shortly before dawn on 19 August 2024.

Lynchhad beencleared two months earlier of fraud chargesin the US relating to the purchase of his company,Autonomy, by Hewlett-Packard in 2011, and was enjoying a voyage around Sicily to celebrate with his 18-year-old daughter, Hannah, and his wife, Angela Bacares, whose company owned the Bayesian.

The lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife, Neda, the banker Jonathan Bloomer and his wife, Judy, and the yacht’s chef, Recaldo Thomas, were also killed when the vessel sank. Nine other crew members and six guests – including Bacares – were rescued.

The complex salvage operation was temporarily suspended in mid-May afterRob Cornelis Maria Huijben, a 39-year-old Dutch diver, died during underwater work.

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Investigators hope the yacht will yield clues to the causes of the sinking. A forensic examination will seek to determine whether one of the hatches remained open and whether the keel was improperly raised.

Prosecutors have opened an inquiry into suspected manslaughter. The boat’s captain, James Cutfield, from New Zealand, and two British crew members,Tim Parker Eaton and Matthew Griffiths, have been placed under investigation. In Italy, this does not imply guilt or mean that formal charges will necessarily follow.

According to a preliminary safety report released last month by the UK’s Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB), the Bayesian may have been vulnerable to high winds when running on its engine. These “vulnerabilities” were “unknown to either the owner or the crew” as they were not included in the stability information book onboard.

The MAIB said a possible “tornadic waterspout” headed towards the boats in the harbour. The docks seemed to divert the whirlwind, which went straight towards the Bayesian, and the vessel sank within a few seconds.

In September, Italian authorities requested additional security around the wreck after fears were raised that material in watertight safes onboard might be of interest to foreign governments.

Associated Press contributed to this report.

Scheme could lose credibility with consumers thanks to ‘weak’ minimum standards and risk of corruption and non-compliance, report warns

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Australian households and businesses are missing out on billions of dollars of power bill savings, an expert has warned, after a scathing audit found the department in charge of the efficiency scheme for appliances has failed to properly administer it.

The poor administration of the program has left consumers worse off, saidAlan Pears, a senior fellow at RMIT and Melbourne University who helped develop appliance energy standards in Victoria.

Pears warned the program needs a wider rethink, including strengthening “weak” minimum standards which are preventing people getting access to or buying the most efficient appliances, leading to higher energy bills.

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The Greenhouse andEnergyMinimum Standards (Gems) Act ensures products meet minimum energy performance standards and energy rating label requirements. The labelling requirement includes the energy efficiency star-rating stickers often seen on refrigerators or dishwashers.

But the National Audit Office (ANAO) report found the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water is not measuring the program’s impact on reducing emissions. The report said the department “is not measuring the program’s impact on reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions and so cannot demonstrate whether the program is achieving its intended purpose”.

Issues flagged in the ANAO report could negatively impact its credibility, Pears said.

Pears said the energy rating stickers “have a lot of credibility with people” and is “relied upon” by consumers.

“The issue we face now is, if the program is not being properly administered – and clearly it hasn’t been – then the government and the energy sector too are at risk of … losing credibility with consumers.”

The department has said the scheme has saved households and businesses between $12bn and $18bn in energy costs since the Act was legislated in 2012. Between 2021 and 2022, it said consumers saved between $1.3bn to $2bn, and greenhouse gas emissions were reduced between 4.1m and 6.3m tonnes.

But Pears said the broad gap in estimated figures suggests the scheme is not working as intended.

“The fact that there’s such a wide band reflects the fact that they have some idea but not a very precise idea of what the benefits are,” he said.

Pears said that beyond the administrative gaps, the current minimum standards are “weak” compared to best-practice regions like the European Union or China.

For example, the EU began enforcing a new rule this year for the energy consumption of electrical appliances in standby or off-mode, which it says will save consumers up to $950m between now and 2030.

If Australia were to raise its standards, Pears said every household or business could save “thousands” of dollars over the lifetime of each appliance.

“Because our standards are quite weak, we don’t necessarily get the most efficient products,” Pears said.

Under the legislation, companies test their appliances in approved laboratories according to the minimum standards. The data is sent to the climate change department for review. If compliant, the appliance is approved for sale in Australia.

The department can perform a “check test” on products to independently to ensure they are compliant.

The audit said the number of check tests has been decreasing over recent years, and haven’t targeted areas with the “greatest risk of non-compliance”. In the financial year 2013-2014 the department conducted 188 check tests, according to the ANAO, but in 2021-22 just 61 models were checked.

The department told the ANAO it aims to test between 60 and 70 products annually.

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Pears said this can allow some bad actors to get away with subpar testing adding that an effective testing program is similar to speed cameras on the road.

“If you think you might get caught for speeding, you’ll obey the speed limit. With any regulatory system like appliance efficiency, if you think you might be caught, you’re much more likely to do things properly.”

Since the program was established in 2012, the department has issued just four infringement notices, none which were paid or enforced. The audit office report said this could “limit the department’s ability to effectively encourage compliance and deter non-compliance”.

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ANAO’s report also found that, in many cases, the same person within the climate change department was in charge of assessing and approving or rejecting a product.

“Without effective segregation of duties, there is risk that products that do not meet the requirements of the relevant Gems determination may be approved for registration. This also increases the risk of human error or corruption,” the report said.

Pears also believed information on appliance efficiency stickers should be improved. He wants the government to spend more money to improve consumers’ understanding of the rating system, and ensure the system is fit for purpose.

“You have to be careful because the star rating is based on the size of the appliance, not necessarily on its actual energy use. So if you’ve got a seven-star enormous television, that can still be using a lot more energy than a much smaller TV that’s got a low star rating.”

The department responded to the audit, accepting all of its nine recommendations, and said work is already under way to improve the program.

ANAO recommended check testing be targeted to areas with the greatest risk of non-compliance. It also recommended the department develop performance measures to assess the effectiveness of the program in achieving its outcomes.

In a statement, the department confirmed it has established a taskforce to improve the program, and has begun “expanding the availability of check facilities” to encourage better compliance.

The last in a series of increases to employers’ minimum contribution from 9% over more than a decade will come into effect on 1 July

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Australian workers can look forward to a bigger nest egg, with an increase to the superannuation guarantee to add tens of thousands of dollars to the average super account.

From 1 July, employers’ minimum required contribution to employees’ superannuation accounts will rise from 11.5% to 12%.

It is the latest and last in a series of incremental increases from 9% over more than a decade since they were legislated by the Rudd-Gillard Labor government in 2012.

With the latest bump, a 30-year-old earning $60,000 would have an extra $20,000 in super by retirement, according to the Association ofSuperannuationFunds of Australia.

It will add about $300 each year to the superannuation of a worker on a $60,000 salary, or $500 for someone on a $100,000 salary.

“The system foundations are cemented for young, working people to have a comfortable retirement,” the ASFA chief executive, Mary Delahunty, said.

“It’s a moment all Australians should be proud of.”

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The association said the cost of a comfortable retirement had increased 1.6% in the past year, while the cost of a modest retirement rose 1.7%.

A “comfortable” retirement includes top-level health insurance, a reasonable car and leisure activities.

The cost of either outcome was increasing slower than Australia’s current 2.4% headline inflation but retiree budgets remained under pressure from rising food, energy and health costs.

Couples on average need $73,900 annually for a comfortable retirement, while most singles require $52,300 a year, ASFA says.

For a modest retirement covering the basics, couples needed $48,200 each year, singles $33,400, or for renting couples, $64,250, and $46,660 each year for singles who rent.

The figures underlined the importance of increasing Australia’s housing stock, Delahunty said.

“They also illustrate how super can be the difference between hardship and stability later in life, especially for renters.”

For some workers, the extra contribution would come from their existing pay package, according to CPA Australia’s superannuation lead, Richard Webb.

“It’s a good idea to check with your employer to see how they view the changes and what it means for you,” he said.

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Workers on contracts with a total remuneration package could see a slight drop in their take-home pay, while those on award or enterprise agreements would likely receive the contribution on top of their current pay.

When compulsory superannuation was introduced in 1992 – in part to reduce government spending on the age pension – only one in 10 Australian retirees listed super as a source of income.

Nine in 10 people between 30 and 50 now have super.

Governmentspending on the age pensionwasprojected to fallfrom 2.3% of gross domestic product in 2020 to 2.0% by 2062-63, despite a doubling of the over-65 population and a trebling of over-85s over the same period.

However, the super guarantee increase would not help those who missed out on paid work for extended periods, the Super Consumers Australia chief executive, Xavier O’Halloran, said.

“(For) people who have caring responsibilities or who have been locked out of the unaffordable housing market … increasing SG further won’t address those inequalities,” he said.

O’Halloran said there was more that could be done to support people struggling in retirement, when a significant portion of their autumnal years’ savings were made.

“Right now, there are no minimum standards for retirement products like there are for MySuper,” he said.

“There is also no performance testing of retirement products, so super funds can still sell poor products.”

A viral video of a barbershop blow-up prompts tales of shear panic. Tell us about your worst haircut experience in the comments

A tradiewent viral this weekafter blowing up at a barber who he claimed left him with a lopsided buzz cut.

The tradesman insisted on paying for the allegedly substandard haircut before storming out. The exchange has sparked a conversation online, with some saying they would never be brave enough to complain and others recounting their worst haircut experiences.

Here Guardian Australia writers – in what almost became a group therapy session – tell us about their worst haircuts. You can share yours in the comments below.

I was in the middle of an almost year-long backpacking trip around the world in 2000. My hair was getting what I’d describe as quite lustrous but my then girlfriend had another word. Anyway, we were in a town somewhere south of Santiago and I gave in and found a barber. I emerged into the Chilean sun looking like the love child of a 1960s Paul McCartney andSharon Strzelecki. At least I didn’t stick out – every other male seemed to have the same haircut. And no, I don’t have pictures.

When I moved to London, paying for a haircut seemed prohibitively expensive. So I signed up to be a “hair model” (AKA guinea pig) at a fancy salon in Covent Garden. The waiver I signed meant I was handing myself over to the stylist to do whatever they pleased. My hairdresser said he wanted to replicate the hairstyle he’d given the day before to a woman with dead-straight blond hair on my shoulder-length brown curls. Then he proceeded to cut my hair to the length and shape of a cheap clown wig, with a bizarre band of 2cm-long tufts around the hairline. It might have looked edgy on the blond but on me it looked like a lawnmower had broken down midway doing through the job, and from the horrified look on the hairdresser’s sweating face, he knew it.

Quite early in my career at the West Australian newspaper I switched from dark brown to blond hair, for no clear reason I can now remember. They stopped sending me to political doorstops as a brand protection measure. After that I had bright red hair and an eyebrow ring, again I can’t recall why, and they switched me to a desk-bound column job for a while, and the main editorial cartoonist drew a caricature that senior editors shared around afternoon news conference.

I went on a TV show and said if I won the trophy I’d get a bowl cut with it. I won, and my mate put the trophy on my head and chopped. I do not have the straight Beatle-style locks required to keep a bowl cut flat so it just looked like half my normal wavy hairdo had gone missing.

But I was committed – I kept the cut for nearly a month, the constant expansion of the hair above my ears only accentuated by the absence of anything below. Who knew my forehead could look so big?

I’ve got a mate who’s a rock star. He’s admirably self-effacing about it but that’s what he is: a bona fide, write-in-on-your-tax-return rock star. We used to kick around in bands together but he was always destined for greater things: his life is now sold-out stadiums across the US, pool parties with the Wu-Tang Clan, his face on T-shirts.

Allied to his extraordinary musical talent, this man has an effortless, charming charisma. He went and got a haircut that was very cool at the time: a supremely high buzz cut up the sides, betopped by a cheeky fringe. He wore it, it looked amazing. I thought, “Yeah, I could totally nail that.”

I did not nail it. It was awful and aggressive and made me look thuggish. Photos from the time make me cringe. I think I ended up just shaving my head and starting again – chastened and altogether more careful about trying to be cool.

I was going through a major life change in London – I’d quit my job and was planning to travel and write a book, so felt I needed a new haircut to reflect the new me. I decided to leave my old hairdresser of many years, thinking she was too edgy and “didn’t get me”. So I tried out a new, very expensive and “trendy” hairdresser in London, who had given a friend the most perfect bob. At this new place they give you a glass of wine before the cut, so the stylist can get to you know you. Overcome by how cool the hairdresser was, I gave my consent to an asymmetrical bob.

It was so bad – everyone I knew just stared at me dumbfounded. I went out for a drink and who was the only other person in the bar? My old hairdresser! And I felt personally attacked by theFleabag asymmetrical bobstoryline.

Exclusive:Agriculture minister Julie Collins and Indigenous affairs minister Malarndirri McCarthy expressed concern over Sturt Plateau pipeline’s construction

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Senior Albanese government ministers disagreed over whether a controversialNorthern Territorygas pipeline should be allowed to go ahead without being fully assessed under national environment laws, an internal document shows.

An environment department brief from February shows representatives for the agriculture minister, Julie Collins, and the Indigenous affairs minister, Malarndirri McCarthy, were concerned about the impact of the Sturt Plateau pipeline’s construction on threatened species and First Nations communities.

A delegate for Collins argued the development should be declared a “controlled action”, a step that indicates it was likely to have a significant impact on a nationally important environmental issue and required a thorough assessment under federal law.

The brief, released under freedom of information laws, shows this was not accepted by the department, acting on behalf of the then environment minister,Tanya Plibersek. It concluded the pipeline did not need a national environmental impact statement before going ahead.

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APA Group, an energy infrastructure business, plans to build the 37km pipeline to connect a fracking operation in the NT’s Beetaloo gas basin with the existing Amadeus pipeline. About 134 hectares of vegetation – equivalent to about 18 football grounds – would be cleared in the NT outback, about 600km south of Darwin. The new pipelineis expected to operate for 40 years.

The environment department said that the construction would clear “high -quality habitat” for the critically endangered northern blue-tongued skink, including about 29 hectares that was “likely critical for the survival of the species”.

But it decided the pipeline route did “not form part of the species’ area of occupancy” and concern about the skink was not grounds to fully assess the development.

Collins’ delegate disagreed. They said the pipeline should be fully assessed due to its potential impact on threatened species habitat and the assessment should consider “cumulative impacts” – that is, that the pipeline and the Shenandoah pilot fracking project developed by Tamboran Resources should be considered together.

The delegate argued that approval of the development should include conditions to protect “the resource base on which agriculture depends” – including groundwater – and Indigenous culture.

McCarthy’s delegate told the environment department that First Nations groups were concerned about the project’s connection to fracking, which they opposed due to its potential impact on “water supplies and aquifers, the environment, culture, sacred sites and songlines”.

But a delegate for the minister for resources and northern Australia, Madeleine King, backed APA Group’s view that the pipeline did not need a full assessment, arguing it was “unlikely to cause significant impact on protected matters” under environment law and was “key enabling infrastructure to Tamboran’s activity within the Beetaloo basin”.

Hannah Ekin, from the Arid Lands Environment Centre, said in her opinion the brief showed gas industry interests had been prioritised over concerns about the environment and Indigenous culture.

She said it was “really frustrating” that Plibersek did not act on calls for the pipeline to be fully assessed, and particularly that McCarthy’s comments had been disregarded, given she was an NT senator familiar with the region and local Indigenous concerns.

Ekin said the environment department brief indicated the pipeline was found to not need an assessment in part because it was deemed as not “integral” to the extraction of gas. She said this made no sense given the pipeline’s explicit purpose was to ensure gas from Shenandoah could get to Darwin and be usedunder a deal between Tamboran and the NT government.

She said the impact of the pipeline and the fracking development should have been assessed as one. “The federal government must stop putting off looking at the terrible impacts this fracking project will have on the local environment and on the climate,” Ekin said.

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She said the NT government had removed laws that protected communities and the environment and urged the new federal environment minister, Murray Watt, to “step up and call these fracking projects in for independent assessment”. Otherwise, she said, “it’s only a matter of time before we have an environmental disaster”.

Georgina Woods, from the grassroots environmental organisation Lock the Gate Alliance, said the pipeline was “part of the apparatus for fracking in the NT” and should have activated a “water trigger” in federal law for a full assessment. The trigger requires the environment minister to consider the impact of major fossil fuel developments on water resources.

“We don’t feel enough attention is being paid by the federal government to the environmental consequences already under way in the NT as part of the fracking industry,” Woods said. “To see the agriculture department raise concerns, to see the Indigenous affairs department raise concerns, and for these not to be taken up and acted upon is frustrating.”

Federal ministers and the environment department declined to respond to questions from Guardian Australia. APA Group also declined to comment. The NT government was asked for its response.

Lock the Gate is challenging Tamboran Resources’ Shenandoah pilot project in the federal court, alleging it is likely to affect water resources and should not be allowed to go ahead unless referred to Watt for assessment. A hearing starts on Monday.

Fracking in the Beetaloo basin is part of a planned major gas industry expansion overseen by the NT Country Liberal party government. It said this week it hadabandoned a commitment made before it was elected last yearto set a greenhouse gas emissions reduction target for 2030.

Scientists and environmentalists have accused the NT government of also overseeing a ramping up of forest and vegetation destruction on pastoral properties. Nearly 26,000 hectares – an area about 90 times larger than the Sydney CBD – was approved for clearing in the first six months of this year.

More than half of the clearing was given the green light by the NT government’s pastoral land board in a nine-day period earlier this month. None of it was deemed significant enough to refer for assessment under federal environment laws for the potential impact on threatened species and ecosystems.

Kirsty Howey, from the Environment Centre NT, accused the CLP of unleashing an “environmental catastrophe” and “approving more deforestation in six months than has been approved in any one year in the last decade”.

Watt this week met with representatives from industry, environment, farming and First Nations organisations to discuss changes to nature laws. He suggested they could both improve environmental protection and lead to faster approval decisions for development proposals.

Howey said the laws should be immediately reformed “to stop the rampant deforestation and nature destruction occurring across northern Australia before it’s too late for the largest intact savanna woodland left on Earth”.

LNP member for Mermaid Beach says absence of legislative power to remove tents set up in his electorate is ‘unacceptable’

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A Gold Coast Liberal National party MP has called for the return of vagrancy laws to allow police to prosecute homeless people amid an ongoing crackdown on tent cities inQueensland.

Ray Stevens, the member for Mermaid Beach, made the call in a speech to parliament last week.

He spoke about the rise of “presumably homeless people” setting up in tents in “some of the most sought after locations anyone could wish for – absolute beachfront” in his electorate.

“There are many local voices contacting my office to ask what I am doing to protect their residential amenity. My first call of course is to my local police station,” he said.

“The police reluctantly tell me they have no legislative power to move these people on, which I find incredibly disappointing. The vagrancy act is no longer applicable and unless there is demonstrable public disturbance the police, I am told, cannot move them on. This is unacceptable.”

“It is imperative a solution be found that includes giving law enforcement officers the legislative power to enforce the removal of these illegal camp sites,” he said.

The 1931 Vagrants, Gaming, and Other Offences Act made “having no visible lawful means of support or insufficient lawful means” an offence subject to six months’ prison. It also banned begging, public drunkenness, fortune telling, using bad language and more.

South-east Queensland is facing its worst housing crisis in generations, with hundreds living in tent cities or sleeping bags. Councils in the Gold Coast,Moreton Bay and Brisbanehave carried out a campaign of clearing the camps in recent months.

Council rangers don’t have the same powers of detention as arrest, though they can levy a fine and can remove property such as tents from public land. Police typically accompany them during homeless camp clearances butonly as a supporting element.

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A University of Queensland law professor, Tamara Walsh – who has long studied laws criminalising homelessness – said police can still charge people with public nuisance offences.

But they tend not to because doing so is extremely expensive to the taxpayer, due to the cost of putting an offender through court and jail.

“If people are living in poverty and unhoused, then that is a housing issue. It’s a social welfare issue, it’s not a criminal law issue,” she said.

Walsh said homelessness is typically not a choice, so punishing people for being homeless can’t make them stop.

“I wonder how many people would swap their very comfortable, warm home for a beachfront squat at the moment, I certainly wouldn’t. Yeah, the view is spectacular, but at night you can’t see a thing and all you are is in the freezing cold,” she said.

North West Community Group president, Paul Slater, said bringing back the act would be a step in the wrong direction.

“Making homelessness illegal would be a disgrace and would be shameful for our country,” he said.

The attorney general, Deb Frecklington, was contacted for comment.

The state government is alsoconsidering bringing back laws against public drunkenness, contrary to the recommendations of the 1991 royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody.

Stevens said that he understood “that there must be solutions to where the homeless people can be moved to” but that he had heard several reports of bad behaviour on the part of the homeless, including one father who saw two of them “fornicating in the public toilets”.

Council rangers moved on a tent city in Rebel Wilson park in the Gold Coast on Tuesday. A few kilometres away, the National Homelessness Conferencewas being held at the same time.

The border dispute has led to a surge in nationalist sentiment and tit-for-tat actions by both governments

Cambodia has banned imports of fruit and vegetables from Thailand, the latest escalation in a series of retaliatory actions sparked by a long-running border dispute between the South-east Asian neighbours.

Tensions flared in May when troops briefly exchanged fire at a contested area of the border, killing a Cambodian soldier.

The incident has led to a surge in nationalist sentiment and tit-for-tat actions by both governments. Thailand has imposed border restrictions with Cambodia in recent days, whileCambodiahas banned Thai films from TV and cinemas, closed a border checkpoint, and cut internet bandwidth fromThailand. Both countries have shortened visas stays for visitors for one another’s citizens.

A ban on imports of Thai fruit and vegetables to Cambodia came into effect on Tuesday. This follows an ultimatum by Cambodia’s former leaderHun Sen, who ran the country for almost four decades before handing over to his son in 2023, who said those imports would be blocked unless Thai border restrictions were lifted.

On Wednesday, tens of thousands of Cambodians, carrying national flags and pictures of the country’s leaders, took to the streets of Phnom Penh for an official rally to support the government’s stance.

The deputy prime minister, Hun Many, brother of the prime minister, told the crowd the march was “an encouragement and additional energy for the government and our forces”.

“When the country faces a threat or any insult, the Cambodian people will not stay still, we will stand up in united spirit,” he said.

Cambodia has asked the international court of justice (ICJ) to resolve the border dispute. However,Thailanddoes not accept the court’s jurisdiction and has said it prefers to solve the matter through direct negotiations.

The long-running dispute dates back more than a century, to when France, which occupied Cambodia until 1953, first mapped the land border.

The dispute has, over the years, has repeatedly fanned nationalist sentiments in both countries. In 2003, rioters torched the Thai embassy and Thai businesses in Phnom Penh after a Thai celebrity allegedly questioned the jurisdiction over Cambodia’s World Heritage-listed Angkor Wat temple.

Tensionsflared most recently in 2011when an estimated 28 people were killed, and tens of thousands displaced by fighting at the border.

The Thai and Cambodian armies both said they acted in self-defence in May’s exchange of fire.

Cambodia has asked the ICJ to rule on four areas of the disputed border. This includes Mom Bei or Chong Bok, an area where the borders of Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos meet, and which was the site of last month’s clash, as well as three ancient temples.

“The royal government of Cambodia will undertake this task with strong determination and high responsibility to protect our territorial integrity and the best interest of the Cambodian people,”prime minister Hun Manetsaid in a statement earlier this week.

Hun Manet has added that he wanted to maintain “peace and good cooperation” with Thailand.

Cambodia has previously referred the dispute to the ICJ, and in 1962, the court ruled that Preah Vihear, an 11th century Hindu temple, was Cambodian, though it did not rule on the area surrounding it. Cambodia sought a clarification of the ruling in 2011, and in 2013, the ICJ verdict stated that anarea next to the temple was also Cambodia.

Thailand’s prime minister, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, has said the government is committed to protecting Thailand’s sovereignty, and ensuring peace along the border. She has criticised “unprofessional communication”, in an apparent reference to frequent social media statements by the former leader Hun Sen.

Wellington says it has paused payment of some funding until Pacific island nation takes steps to ‘repair the relationship and restore trust’

New Zealand has halted millions of dollars in funding to the Cook Islands over the “breadth and content” ofagreements the smaller Pacific nation made with China, officials from the New Zealand foreign minister’s office has said.

New Zealand, which is theCook Islandsbiggest funder, won’t consider any new money for the nation until the relationship improves, a spokesperson for foreign minister Winston Peters told the Associated Press on Thursday.

Relations between other Pacific islands and their larger regional backers Australia and New Zealandhave stumbled over ties with Chinain recent years as Beijing has vied to increase its Pacific sway.

But the latest move by New Zealand’s government was striking because it reflected growing friction between two countries with strong constitutional ties – Cook Islands is self-governing but shares a military and passports withNew Zealand– over two countries’ diverging approaches to managing relations with Beijing.

Cook Islands prime minister Mark Brown told lawmakers in parliament on Thursday that the funding was “not halted, it’s paused,” and downplayed the significance of the amount frozen.

News of the NZ$18.2m ($11m) funding halt on Thursday, which emerged only when a Cook Islands news outlet saw its brief mention in a government budget document, is likely to prove difficult for New Zealand’s prime minister, Christopher Luxon, who is inChinafor his first official visit and is due to meet President Xi Jinping this week. Beijing has defended its Cook Islands pacts before, saying in February that the deals were not intended to antagonise New Zealand.

Brown made a pointed reference to Luxon’s China visit in parliament on Thursday, highlighting the New Zealand leader’s announcements of increased trade with Beijing and looser visa requirements for Chinese travellers. The Cook Islands leader said he trusted any agreements Luxon made in Beijing would “pose no security threat to the people of the Cook Islands” despite Avarua not knowing their content.

Separately the Cook Islands foreign ministry said in a statement the country was committed to restoring its high-trust relationship with New Zealand and appreciated the funding support received from Wellington.

In a report tabled in the Cook Islands parliament this week, the public accounts committee registered “concern” about a reduction of NZ$10m ($6m) in the government’s purse, the first known mention of the finance freeze. The money was earmarked for “core sector support”, which funds the Cook Islands’ health, education and tourism sectors – with audits by Wellington on how it’s spent.

The money is part of NZ$200m directed to the Cook Islands by New Zealand over the past three years as part of an almost 60-year-old arrangement. The links demand consultation by Cook Islands leaders with Wellington on its agreements with other parties that might affect the relationship and the deals with China were the first serious test of those rules.

The Cook Islands, population 15,000, has a large and lucrative exclusive economic zone, with Brown’s government exploring prospects for deep sea mining activity, and Cook Islanders can freely live and work in New Zealand. That prompted dismay in Wellington when officials learned of the raft of agreements Brown signed in February.

The agreements didn’t promise security cooperation between Beijing and Cook Islands, but they did pledge more funding from China for infrastructure projects and educational scholarships. Not all of the documents Brown signed were released publicly.

The spokesperson for New Zealand foreign minister Peters said on Thursday said the agreements illustrated “a gap in understanding” between the governments “about what our special relationship of free association requires”, which included consultation to ensure the preservation of shared interests.

The “breadth and content” of the deals and lack of consultation with Wellington about them in advance prompted a review of funding to the Cook Islands, Peters’ office said.

“New Zealand has therefore paused these payments and will also not consider significant new funding until the Cook Islands government takes concrete steps to repair the relationship and restore trust,” the spokesperson’s statement said.

New Zealand’s latest action was an “entirely avoidable consequence of Cook Islands’ strategic flirtations with China,” said Mihai Sora, analyst with the Australia-based thinktank Lowy Institute.

“It’s a bit cute to sign up to a comprehensive strategic partnership with China in 2025 and pretend there is no strategic angle for Beijing, given all the mounting evidence of China’s malign strategic intent in the Pacific,” he said.