The Briefing …

Good morning, and welcome to The Briefing.

Australia’s Rohingya Muslim community held demonstrations around the country urging the federal government to intervene over attacks on the ethnic minority in Myanmar.

It is estimated at least 400 people have died in clashes between Rohingya militants and Myanmar soldiers, with the Myanmar government accused of burning villages and massacring civilians. The United Nations has warned that up to 300,000 Rohingya could flee the country, with nearly half that number having fled in just two weeks. The country’s 1.3 million Rohingya Muslims are a historically persecuted minority, denied citizenship since 1982 and restricted from free movement, employment and access to services …

Deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce has called for environmental groups to lose their charitable status, arguing that conservationists were working “to completely destroy the economic base of Australia”. In a speech to the Minerals Council of Australia, which declared nearly $30,000 in donations to Coalition parties in the 2015-16 financial year, Joyce said environmentalists were using the legal system as “a mechanism which works against the interests of our nation”. Last week the MCA called for environmental groups to be restricted from using more than 10 per cent of their expenditure on campaigning and advocacy, even as an Australia Institute report found the MCA and other mining industry groups spent more than $500 million on lobbying in the last decade.

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Alex McKinnon, The Saturday Paper