Morning mail: 19 nations agree to phase out coal Friday: UK, New Zealand, Canada and other countries meeting at UN climate talks in Bonn sign coal pledge. Plus: new study shows $26,527 gender pay gap Climate change activists protesting in Bonn. Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images Eleanor Ainge Roy @EleanorAingeRoy Good morning, this is Eleanor Ainge Roy bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Friday 17 November. Top stories A new alliance of 19 nations committed to quickly phasing out coal has been launched at the UN climate summit in Bonn, Germany. It was greeted as a "political watershed", signalling the end of the dirtiest fossil fuel that currently provides 40% of global electricity. "The case against coal is unequivocal," said UK climate minister Claire Perry, both on environmental and health grounds – air pollution from coal kills 800,000 people a year worldwide. "The alliance will signal to the world that the time of coal has passed." Asked about Donald Trump's US administration, whose only event in Bonn was to promote coal, Catherine McKenna, Canada's environment minister, said it was important communities dependent on coal received help but pointed out that renewable energy already employs 250,000 people in the US, compared to 50,000 in coal, and said: "The market has moved on coal." The current alliance includes a few nations like Fiji that do not use coal and does not include any Asian countries where much of the world's coal is used. Australia has refused to join. Low-lying Pacific nations particularly vulnerable to climate change such as the Marshall Islands applauded the move, and Nick Mabey, chief executive of the E3G thinktank, said: "The launch of this new alliance is a political watershed moment. Governments have now grasped the reality that coal use can end, and fast. The only way for coal is down." Australian women earn only 78% of a man's average full-time pay despite gains in employer focus on gender equality in the workplace, a study has shown. Men earn on average $26,527 more each year, while in top management the number was $89,216. The scorecard collated by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency from data on 4m employees and 11,000 employers also found that there was little increase in the proportion of women on boards over the past three years. Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe is resisting pressure to resign as the first pictures of him emerge in home detention. There are growing calls for the military to reveals its plan for the country, two days after it detained the 93-year-old veteran autocrat and took over public buildings and the streets of the capital Harare. One picture published by local media showed a healthy-looking Mugabe and army general Constantino Chiwenga smiling as they shook hands. No details of the conversations held during the meeting were released. Sources close to the military said Mugabe had described the takeover as illegal and was resisting pressure to resign but the biggest regional power, South Africa, appears to have backed the army. The London theatre where disgraced actor Kevin Spacey commited multiple assaults on young boys and men has apologised for their negligence in failing to report him. The Old Vic recieved 20 individual allegations of inappropriate behaviour by the actor, 14 of them so serious that it had advised complainants to take the matter up with the police. An investigation into the conduct of Spacey during his 11 years at the Old Vic has concluded that the actor's star power, which the theatre described as a "cult of personality", contributed to failings at the organisation. The deforestation surge in Queensland is heavily concentrated in catchments for the Great Barrier Reef and is hurting efforts to improve reef water quality. Jessica Panegyres, a campaigner at the Wilderness Society, called it a "deforestation frenzy" which was leading to more muddy and polluted water smothering coral and seagrass, a situation she accused the Turnbull government of doing "virtually nothing to stop". Sport Australia's plan to recall Tim Paine as Ashes wicketkeeper instead of Peter Nevil has been met with anger by fans and former players, writes Will Macpherson in Townsville, as Paine has not played Test cricket since 2010. Stuart MacGill has called Australian selectors "morons masquerading as mentors". Australia play Samoa in the quarter-finals of the Rugby League World Cup tonight. Join Paul Connolly on the Guardian's liveblog for every minute of the big game in Darwin. Australia's Michael Cheika has accusesed England of deliberate late tackles, with the coach saying England have tried "to get into our half-back after he passes". Thinking time Guardian global editor-in-chief Katharine Viner in Sydney in February. Photograph: Mike Bowers for the Guardian Facebook has become the most powerful publisher in history by replacing editors with algorithms and has divided public debate in a way that challenges liberal democracy, Katharine Viner, the editor-in-chief of the Guardian, has said. In a speech that addressed the challenges facing the Guardian and other media organisations, Viner also accused Donald Trump and other politicians of actively undermining journalism's public interest role in a democracy and warned there was a "march against free speech" in countries such as Russia, Turkey, and Malta, where investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was murdered. While the Guardian editor argued that the emergence of the internet had allowed mass communication to be "open, creative, egalitarian" – helping to vastly improve journalism – there had also been unforeseen consequences. "Our digital town squares are mobbed with bullies, misogynists and racists, who have brought a new kind of hysteria to public debate. Our movements and feelings are constantly monitored, because surveillance is the business model of the digital age," Viner said. "Facebook has become the richest and most powerful publisher in history by replacing editors with algorithms – shattering the public square into millions of personalised news feeds, shifting entire societies away from the open terrain of genuine debate and argument, while they make billions from our valued attention. This shift presents big challenges for liberal democracy. But it presents particular problems for journalism." As Leonardo Da Vinci's 500-year-old Salvator Mundi painting become the most expensive artwork ever sold yesterday – reaching a gobsmacking US$450m yesterday at auction - the Guardian has compiled a guide to every Leonardo painting in existence, from the masterpieces to the less-than-perfects. We should all be working a four-day work week, argues the Guardian's Owen Jones, because the current hours demanded by our frenetic pace of life are killing us. Jones says that by simply cutting the working week by one day we could tackle a range of social ills; from men not doing their fair share of the housework, to chronic health complaints, climate change, mental illness and family breakdowns. Sounds sensible, right boss? What's he done now? Donald Trump is furiously crowing about his hand in the release of three UCLA basketball players who were accused of shoplifting sunglasses while on a trip to China. Earlier in the week Trump said he had a quiet word to his Chinese counterpart during his east Asia tour to ensure the boys' release. "Do you think the three UCLA Basketball Players will say thank you President Trump? They were headed for 10 years in jail!" Trump wrote earlier in the week. Overnight he has offered them some fatherly advice now they are free. "To the three UCLA basketball players I say: You're welcome, go out and give a big Thank You to President Xi Jinping of China who made.........your release possible and, HAVE A GREAT LIFE! Be careful, there are many pitfalls on the long and winding road of life!" Media roundup The Financial Review reveals the East Asia Summit has all but closed the door on Canada officially joining the regional security and strategic forum, after the country snubbed the Trans Pacific Partnership, saying it needed more time to consider the deal. Crikey has a long read on the "psychiatric horror" experienced by refugees on Manus Island who are being denied access to essential psychotropic medications, and are now presenting with withdrawal symptoms such as nausea and confusion, as well as an escalation of their psychiatric symptoms. And the ABC reports on an ambitious new project co-lead by Australian academics called the Human Cell Atlas, which plans to map every single cell in the human body – 37 trillion of them. "We need to understand what cells look like, before we understand how they go wrong or how we might improve their function," said Dr Naik of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute. Coming up The ACCC is bringing a case against Apple for misleading guarantees on products with a hearing scheduled for the federal court in Melbourne. The bones of the 40,000-year-old Mungo Man, discovered in 1974 and held in Canberra ever since, will be returned to Lake Mungo in far western NSW. Supporting the Guardian We'd like to acknowledge our generous supporters who enable us to keep reporting on the critical stories. If you value what we do and would like to help, please make a contribution or become a supporter today. Thank you. Guardian News & Media Limited - a member of Guardian Media Group PLC. 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