FOUR YEARS’ JAIL FOR SARA CONNOR

Australian woman Sara Connor has been sentenced to four years in an Indonesian jail after being found guilty of killing Bali police officer Wayan Sudarsa. Her British partner, David Taylor, was also found guilty of the same charge and given a six-year sentence. Forty-six-year-old Connor, from Byron Bay, has a week to appeal the sentence. Fairfax reports the seven months already served in jail will be deducted from Connor’s sentence. Appeals are not without risk in Indonesia, as Jewel Topsfield reports — they come with the possibility the court will impose tougher sentences than those originally handed down.

TURNBULL SAYS ‘SORT IT OUT’

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has waded into the factional war engulfing the Victorian Liberal Party, The Australian reports. The article includes accusations that leaks in January about then-industry minister Greg Hunt‘s travel came from the office of Special Minister of State Scott Ryan. The claims have been denied. The issue is just one element of the feud dividing MPs loyal to either Victorian Liberal president Michael Kroger or his challenger, Peter Reith. The Oz reports: “Senior government sources confirmed Mr Turnbull had spoken to all ministers involved in the long-running dispute, ­demanding that they ‘sort it out’.”

BISHOP: CHINA NEEDS DEMOCRACY

“While non-democracies such as China can thrive when participating in the present system, an essential pillar of our preferred order is democratic community.”

“Domestic democratic habits of negotiating and compromise are essential to powerful countries resolving their disagreements according to international law and rules”

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop used a speech in Singapore last night to call on China to move towards democracy, while also affirming the need for the United States to retain strategic alliances in the Indo-Pacific region, despite US President Donald Trump publicly questioning the alliances.

WA ELECTION FALLOUT CONTINUES

The fallout from the Western Australian election continues, with the Fairfax papers reporting Queensland Labor strategists are considering delaying that state’s election to let One Nation implode. “We let them go and let them implode and let the public see them for what they are. Waiting until early next year does that,” a Labor source told reporter Amy Remeikis. In the Liberal blame-game The Australian reports PM Malcolm Turnbull‘s 24-hour visit to Perth during the campaign is being blamed for the swing against the party. The Oz also reports that if the swing against the state Liberals were repeated at a federal level, 10 out of 11 Liberal seats in the state would be in danger.

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Canberra: Cabinet meets today, and The Australian reports the fast-tracking of changes to section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act could be on the agenda, following the death of cartoonist Bill Leak last week.

Sydney: ACCC Chair Rod Sims will address the Australian Domestic Gas Outlook conference, saying gas shortages are “making it extremely difficult, if not impossible” for some manufacturers.

Adelaide: The South Australian government is set to announce an energy plan for the state, and the Australian Financial Review reports the plan will involve the government intervening in the gas industry to ensure the state’s own energy security.

Alice Springs: The royal commission into child detention in the Northern Territory continues public hearings today. Yesterday the commission heard from a detainee who said he had been choked against a wall by a guard.

New South Wales: Sydney, the Blue Mountains and other areas of the state’s central west are on storm alert today, with the Bureau of Meteorology forecasting wild weather. 

THE COMMENTARIAT

Gift from a true champion of Western civilisation — John Howard (The Australian $) “It is envisaged that new degrees will be established, which will be designated along the lines of BA (Western civilisation).”

Long way to go in closing the ACT’s Indigenous education gap — John Stanhope, Khalid Ahmed (Sydney Morning Herald) “Indigenous children entering the ACT school system are almost twice as likely to be developmentally vulnerable or at risk on more than one domain. Sadly, the life circumstances of Indigenous children showing up at school in the ACT, and the failure of our school system to deal with those circumstances, means we don’t know whether they will succeed.”

It’s far too soon to write-off Pauline Hanson and the populist right — Nick O’Malley (Sydney Morning Herald) “The fault lines that One Nation has always used to find its way into the body politic are still there. Resentment at the political class remains powerful as our leaders fail to narrow the divide between rich and poor, rural and urban.”

Why The Australian newspaper is out of touch with WA — Ben Harvey (The West Australian) “That the self-professed powerhouse of Australian journalism could endorse the Barnett government for a third term shows the people running the paper have no feel for WA. That voters did the polar opposite of what The Australian suggested is yet more proof that the paper’s power is vastly overstated.”

 THE WORLD

Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon called for a second referendum on Scottish independence, less than three years after the previous unsuccessful referendum. The call raises tensions with British PM Theresa May, who is awaiting a parliamentary vote to trigger Article 50, the plan to exit the EU. — New York Times

Japan’s Izumo helicopter carrier, its largest warship, will join US naval training in the South China Sea beginning in May. The ship’s journey will take it into waters over which China claims “irrefutable” sovereignty. Philippine President President Rodrigo Duterte, who has been critical of both the US and China, may visit the ship when it enters Subic Bay, close to Manilla. — Reuters

Catalonia’s Superior Court of Justice convicted former Catalan leader Artur Mas of civil disobedience for organising an independence referendum in 2014. Mas intends to appeal the ruling, which carries with it a two-year ban on holding office. — BBC

Two UN officials have been kidnapped in Congo’s Kasai Central province, according to the Congolese government. A statement from Information Minister Lambert Mende said that the government was working with the UN to free the officials, who are of US and Swedish nationality, as well as four Congolese nationals who were with them. — Reuters

 TODAY IN TRUMP 

Xi Jinping will receive a warm welcome from President Trump, who plans to host the Chinese leader at his Mar-el-Largo resort in Florida.

“Of course I don’t have any evidence for these allegations,” said Kellyanne Conway in a televised interview in which she claimed that surveillance of the Trump campaign might have gone beyond wiretaps, and that “microwaves that turn into cameras” could well have been involved.

 WHAT WE’RE READING

Financier’s Fight Over the American Dream (The New Yorker): “Short sellers are generally reviled by corporations as malevolent opportunists. But, unlike most investors, they’re motivated to expose problems in public companies. “I think short selling, and in fact public short selling, where you share your concerns in a public way, is an incredibly healthy thing, not just for the capital markets but because the regulators do not have the resources to find these things,” Ackman said.”

The Iraqi army is on the brink of defeating Islamic State (The Economist): “Mr Ahmed probably speaks for many when he recalls that in the days immediately after IS took control of Mosul, the jihadists were rather popular. The previous elected authorities had been corrupt and incompetent, and unable to deliver the basics. Electricity, he recalls, was available for just three hours a day.”

Protest and persist: why giving up hope is not an option (The Guardian): “When those women were arrested in parliament, they were fighting for the right of British women to vote. They succeeded in liberating themselves. But they also passed along tactics, spirit and defiance. You can trace a lineage backward to the anti-slavery movement that inspired the American women’s suffrage movement, forward right up to John Lewis standing up for refugees and Muslims in the Atlanta airport this year. We are carried along by the heroines and heroes who came before and opened the doors of possibility and imagination.”

Going underground: inside the world of the mole-catchers (The Guardian): “In the 18th century mole-catchers were employed by every parish in England to keep the mole population under control. Catching these creatures required such skill that practitioners were remunerated more generously than surgeons. Mole-catchers zealously guarded their methods, divulging them only to their own children.”

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