Good morning, this is Eleanor Ainge Roy bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Friday 2 March. Top stories One of Australia's largest cotton companies reaped a $52m windfall in the sale of water rights to federal government. Documents released to the Senate show Eastern Australia Agriculture sold its overland water rights to the federal government in July last year for $79m, and then booked a $52m gain on the sale. The deal, which was done without tender, will raise questions about whether the government paid over the odds for the water in southern Queensland. Details of the water buyback were released to the Senate after an NXT senator for South Australia, Rex Patrick, sought production of documents associated with this and other water deals during Barnaby Joyce's time as agriculture minister. The documents included valuations by Colliers International, which were used by the Department of Agriculture to price the water from EAA. But unlike an earlier release of documents, the valuations were heavily redacted. In one unredacted comment, Colliers warned "there is no true market" for overland flows – the type of water rights the federal government was proposing to purchase – and that "trading was limited to sales only to the commonwealth". Vladimir Putin has announced that Russia has developed and is testing a new line of strategic nuclear-capable weapons that would be able to outmanoeuvre US defences, in a possible signal of a new arms race between Moscow and the west. Putin showed video and animations of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), nuclear-powered cruise missiles, underwater drones and other weapons that he said Russia had developed as a result of the US pulling out of the 1972 anti-ballistic missile treaty signed with the Soviet Union. "You didn't listen to our country then," Putin said during the speech on Thursday, weeks before the presidential election. "Listen to us now." The existence of several of the weapons systems is well-known. What is new is Putin's portrayal of Russia's modernising arsenal as an adversarial response to US policy since 2001. An Israeli private investigator has shared videos with the Guardian he says show alleged child sex abuser Malka Leifer living a "normal, healthy" life, despite being declared unfit to be extradited to Australia. Tsafrir Tsahi collected more than 200 hours of footage of the former school principal who is living in Israel but wanted in Australia on 74 counts of suspected sexual assault and rape at a Jewish ultra-Orthodox girls school in Melbourne. Tsahi's material has now been handed over the police, who subsequently conducted their own investigation and have since rearrested Leifer on suspicion of "obstruction of justice". Australia's first week on the UN human rights council has been undermined by a scathing report on its immigration policies, criticising them as part of a global "escalating cycle of repression and deterrence" that has caused "massive abuse" of migrants. Australia, which campaigned for three years for a seat on the council, has been a global promoter of its hardline policies designed to deter irregular migration, including boat pushbacks, mandatory and indefinite detention, and offshore processing. The 20-page report to the human rights council, from the UN's special rapporteur on torture, Nils Melzer, said the major reason migrants were exploited and abused was the policies of states that sought to deter people from migrating and punish those who did. Gareth Hutchens and Greg Jericho continue the Guardian's special report into Australia's wage problem, and ask who is to blame for the stalling of salaries? After three decades of labour market "reforms" the workforce has fractured and wage inequality has deepened. Part-time and casual jobs have increased , along with the number of people who say they want to work more hours, and household income is lower in real terms than it was in 2011. Labor says it is examining ways to encourage industry-level bargaining for low-paid workers, which it believes might enable better pay deals. The move would signal a shift away from negotiating pay deals workplace by workplace. Sport Australia finished on 225-5 at the end of a tough and absorbing first day of their Test series against South Africa, finishing 225-5 at stumps in Durban. The dismissals of Steve Smith and David Warner, for 56 and 51 respectively, swung momentum the Proteas' way during the post-lunch session on Thursday, but the Marsh brothers and Tim Paine rallied. International Association of Athletics' Sebastian Coe has told Russia his organisation will still play hardball, despite the International Olympics Committee's decision to welcome the country back into the sporting fold. Russia has been banned from track and field since November 2015. Thinking time | 
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Eastern Australia Agriculture, one of Australia's largest cotton companies, sold its overland water rights to the federal government in July last year for $79m and then booked a $52m windfall on the sale. Photograph: Andrea Murdoch/Cotton Australia 
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