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Australia Ruins Birthdays For Every School Kid In The Country

THE HERALD SUN, NHMRC, AAP, THE AUSTRALIAN (Australia)

Worldcrunch

MELBOURNE – Australia is officially the meanest country EVER!

New hygiene rules mean that Australian children will be banned from blowing out birthday candles at school parties.

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Photo devinf

Yes, you read it correctly. No this is not a cruel joke. According to the latest National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) guidelines, children at Australia's child-care centers will be banned from blowing out candles on communal birthday cakes, reports the Herald Sun.

The motivation behind the new rules: to avoid blowing germs on the cake.

"Children love to blow out their candles while their friends are singing "Happy birthday"," says the NHMRC document. "To prevent the spread of germs when the child blows out the candles, parents should either provide a separate cupcake, with a candle if they wish, for the birthday child and (either) enough cupcakes for all the other children ... (or) a large cake that can be cut and shared.”

So just how will these new rules be enforced? Will the fun police be patrolling every daycare and preschool in Australia?

According to the AAP, Health Minister Tanya told reporters: "We're not going to have the cupcake police out, but childcare centers know that whatever they can do to reduce infections in childcare centers is going to be good for the kids, good for the families they support and good for childcare workers."

The Australian Medical Association warned the clean-freak regulations place "kids in a bubble," reports the Australian. “If somebody sneezes on a cake, I probably don't want to eat it either - but if you're blowing out candles, how many organisms are transferred to a communal cake, for goodness' sake?" asks AMA president Steve Hambleton.

He added: “"If you live in a plastic bubble you're going to get infections (later in life) that you can't handle."

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Economy

Lithium Mines In Europe? A New World Of Supply-Chain Sovereignty

The European Union has a new plan that challenges the long-established dogmas of globalization, with its just-in-time supply chains and outsourcing the "dirty" work to the developing world.

Photo of an open cast mine in Kalgoorlie, Australia.

Open cast mine in Kalgoorlie, Australia.

Pierre Haski

-Analysis-

PARIS — It is one of the great paradoxes of our time: in order to overcome some of our dependencies and vulnerabilities — revealed in crises like COVID and the war in Ukraine — we risk falling into other dependencies that are no less toxic. The ecological transition, the digitalization of our economy, or increased defense needs, all pose risks to our supply of strategic minerals.

The European Commission published a plan this week to escape this fate by setting realistic objectives within a relatively short time frame, by the end of this decade.

This plan goes against the dogmas of globalization of the past 30 or 40 years, which relied on just-in-time supply chains from one end of the planet to the other — and, if we're being honest, outsourced the least "clean" tasks, such as mining or refining minerals, to countries in the developing world.

But the pendulum is now swinging in the other direction, if possible under better environmental and social conditions. Will Europe be able to achieve these objectives while remaining within the bounds of both the ecological and digital transitions? That is the challenge.

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