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This Happened

This Happened — May 14: Cate Blanchett Is Born

Cate Blanchett was born on this day in 1969. Blanchett is an Australian actress known for her roles in film, television, and theater. She has won multiple awards, including two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and three Screen Actors Guild Awards.

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What Explains Such Uneven Progress Of LGBTQ+ Rights Around The World

As LGBTQ+ rights continue to be a global struggle, there's a widening gap between countries making strides towards equality and those experiencing regression due to political, cultural, and religious opposition.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong joined 50,000 people to march in support of queer rights across the Sydney Harbour Bridge for World Pride in early March. A week earlier, Albanese became the first sitting prime minister to march in Sydney’s Mardi Gras, something he’s done over several decades.

And yet at the same time, in another part of the world, Uganda’s parliament passed a string of draconian measures against homosexuality, including possible death sentences for “aggravated homosexuality”. Any “promotion” of homosexuality is also outlawed.

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AUKUS: Bold Deterrent Or Self-Fulfilling Prophecy Of A Future War With China?

AUKUS, the security pact between the US, the UK, and Australia, is beginning to take shape. Its aim is to deter China, but it risks drawing the Indo-Pacific region into a military conflict.

-Analysis-

You might remember AUKUS, the security pact between the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. Under the pact, the US and UK will assist Australia in acquiring nuclear-powered submarines.

For France, its foundation 18 months ago meant the termination of the French submarine mega-contract with Australia. The process of reconciliation with these countries was gradual: first with the United States, then with Australia thanks to a change of government, and finally with the British, who were closer and therefore more difficult to forgive.

But AUKUS (the acronym for Australia-United Kingdom, United States) hadn't been mentioned much until Monday, when U.S President Joe Biden welcomed on a San Diego submarine base his British and Australian counterparts, Prime Ministers Rishi Sunak and Anthony Albanese. The aim? To give weight to this alliance between the three English-speaking powers in the face of an opponent that’s never been addressed: China, of course.

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The Australian Dream: Lived, Loved And Lost By Yearning Italian Youth

Every year thousands of young Italians apply for a Working Holiday visa and escape to Australia. They have many reasons for leaving — but many seek a better work-life balance down under. And then, there are those who cut their adventure short to return home to the bel paese.

MILAN — “The last two days it was 35 degrees, but last week we got over 40.” It’s December. As he speaks to me, it is just past 10 p.m. for Alberto Bellini, while here, in cold, wintery Milan, the afternoon has just begun. Alberto is exactly 12,992 kilometers away from my phone: he called me from Karratha, a town of 23,000 inhabitants in Western Australia.

Alberto is one of the thousands young Italians who, every year, decide to leave everything and move to the other side of the world, taking advantage of the Working Holiday visa that, thanks to an international convention, allows them to live and work in Australia for up to three years.

Another land, another language, another life. The reasons for leaving are many and always different, as are those that convince so many to return to Italy after months or years spent abroad. In some cases, the desire to leave is dictated by the immobility of the Italian labor market, which benefits those who already have everything.

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Economy
Shaun Lavelle, Riley Sparks, Ginevra Falciani

Why More Countries Are Banning Foreigners From Buying Real Estate

Canada has become the most recent country to impose restrictions on non-residents buying real estate, arguing that wealthy investors from other countries are pricing out would-be local homeowners. But is singling out foreigners the best way to face a troubled housing market?

PARIS — It’s easy to forget that soon after the outbreak of COVID-19, many real estate experts were forecasting that housing prices could face a once-in-generation drop. The logic was that a shrinking pandemic economy would combine with people moving out of cities to push costs down in a lasting way.

Ultimately, in most places, the opposite has happened. Home prices in the U.S., Canada, Britain, Germany, Australia and New Zealand rose between 25% and 50% since the outbreak of COVID-19.

This explosion was driven by a number of factors, including low interest rates, supply chain issues in construction and shortages in available properties caused in part by investors buying up large swathes of housing stock.

Yet some see another culprit deserving of particular attention: foreign buyers.

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This Happened

This Happened—December 17: Australian Prime Minister Goes Missing, Forever

On December 17th, 1976, Australian prime minister Harold Holt went for a swim with friends and never returned.

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Work In Progress
Bertrand Hauger, Anne-Sophie Goninet, Laure Gautherin and Emma Albright

Work → In Progress: Time To Change Everything Or Back To Business As Usual?

The world of work is at a crossroads. A new French study published last week shows that in the span of four years, jobs offering remote work have increased tenfold since 2017, as the world grapples with the long-term impact of COVID-19. The profound questioning of the necessity to “go to the office” that the pandemic posed led to teleworking becoming a “new normal” of sorts, with the majority of businesses implementing hybrid models that allow employees to work remotely while still having access to the necessary resources they need to do their jobs ...

… that is, until it was "back to business as usual." But returning to office-based work, as most parts of the world consider the coronavirus crisis more or less a thing of the past, it is becoming apparent to some that things would, and should, never be the same.

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In The News
Lisa Berdet, Chloé Touchard, Lila Paulou and Bertrand Hauger

All Eyes On Southern Ukraine, Baghdad Clashes, Pumpkin Ride

👋 Da'anzho!*


Welcome to Tuesday, where Ukraine launches a counteroffensive to retake Kherson in the south of the country, deadly clashes rock Iraq after cleric al-Sadr resigns, and the world record for pumpkin paddling (you read that right) gets broken. We also turn to Ukraine’s news platform Livy Bereg to see how Russian propaganda plays out across European countries.



[*Eastern Apache]

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Rwanda
Tazreena Sajjad*

How Rich Western Countries Pay To Send Refugees Away

Western countries are shipping refugees to poorer nations in exchange for cash.

The UK government was due to begin its first deportation flight to remove asylum-seekers to the East African country of Rwanda on June 14, 2022, exactly two months after signing the UK-Rwanda agreement. The asylum-seekers were from several war-torn and politically unstable countries, including Syria, Sudan and Iran.

Each year, thousands of people – many fleeing repressive governments or poverty – attempt to cross the English Channel in fragile boats in the hope of starting a new life in the UK.

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Society
Grégory Plesse

How Airbnb Created A Homeless Crisis In An Idyllic Australian Town

In the bohemian Australian seaside town of Byron Bay, rents are now higher than Sydney or Melbourne. And as Airbnb takes its toll, this small town has almost as many homeless people as Sydney.

BYRON BAY — It's a scene that is repeated almost every evening. Small groups form on the seafront, some take out a guitar around an improvised campfire among the rocks, a few acrobats hypnotize passers-by by twirling fiery bolas, and most clink glasses over a few beers, modestly covered by paper bags. They are all there to admire the sun setting behind the mountains bordering the northern tip of the beach, which stretches for about 30 kilometers, tinting the sky with shades ranging from pale pink to scarlet red.

Located at the eastern tip of Australia, an ideal geographical position where very beautiful waves are formed, Byron Bay, in New South Wales, is one of the most popular destinations for surfers. It is also home to one of the oldest surf clubs in the country, created more than a century ago, in 1907.

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Future
Charles Barbour

The Laugh Frontier: Can AI Understand Irony?

Bot did you get it?

What was your first reaction when you heard about Blake Lemoine, the Google engineer who announced last month the AI program he was working on had developed consciousness?

If, like me, you’re instinctively suspicious, it might have been something like: Is this guy serious? Does he honestly believe what he is saying? Or is this an elaborate hoax?

Put the answers to those questions to one side. Focus instead on the questions themselves. Is it not true that even to ask them is to presuppose something crucial about Blake Lemoine: specifically, he is conscious?

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Migrant Lives
Jamal Barnes

Not My Problem: Individual Responsibility And Government Abuse Of Asylum Seekers

Denial and indifference drive the way ordinary Australians face the mistreatment of refugees.

-OpEd-

As one of its first acts in government, the newly elected Labor government turned back a boat of Sri Lankan asylum seekers trying to enter Australia.

Labor has vowed to continue Operation Sovereign Borders, including boat turnbacks and offshore detention. This is concerning. Not only do turnbacks violate international law, but offshore detention has resulted in torture and cruel and inhuman treatment of refugees.

Even more concerning is the lack of criticism Labor has received for continuing offshore detention and turnbacks. Apart from being condemned by human rights groups and minor political parties, Labor’s refugee policies appear to have gone without much comment from a large part of the Australian public.

As I found in my new research paper, the Australian government has used three forms of denial, creating physical and psychological distance between itself and refugees.

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