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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Tame podcast

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Speaker 1: from News Talks at me.

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Speaker 2: You know my idea of fun. You're expecting me to

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Speaker 2: say sex, drugs, rock and roll, wild parties, cocaine fueled

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Speaker 2: late night debauchery, guilty as charged. That does sound like

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Speaker 2: a bit of me, But no, No, my idea of

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Speaker 2: fun is a map. I've got a huge detailed map

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Speaker 2: on my wall, a winkled triple projection, Pacific centered. Of course,

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Speaker 2: I can while away ours whole afternoons intercontinental flights just

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Speaker 2: staring at a map. And when you steer at a

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Speaker 2: detailed map, you're drawn to curiosities, to extremes, and naturally,

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Speaker 2: of course, you're drawn into imagining or fantasizing what those

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Speaker 2: places might be like in person, rather than simply as

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Speaker 2: a coordinate on your wall. Three remote, extreme curious places

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Speaker 2: on Earth that I've always fantasized about seeing. One is Ladenkonnada,

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Speaker 2: which is the highest permanently populated town in the world

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Speaker 2: that's in the Peruvian Andes, a grim, freezing mining town

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Speaker 2: with a violent crime problem, and where a slab of

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Speaker 2: the residents may or may not have mercury poisoning it's

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Speaker 2: higher than Everest Base Camp, and if you watch on YouTube,

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Speaker 2: it's about as far from a few nights as Denero

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Speaker 2: as it's possible to be. The next are the Kerzill

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Speaker 2: Islands aka the Desolation Islands, a vast seven thousand square

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Speaker 2: kilometer archipelago and the sub Antarctic. It's home to amazing

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Speaker 2: wildlife and a few dozen French scientists, and it is huge.

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Speaker 2: It's vast. The main island of the Kurgulan Islands is

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Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty kilometers long and one hundred and

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Speaker 2: twenty kilometers wide. Have you ever heard of it? It's

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Speaker 2: one of the most remote places on Earth. And my

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Speaker 2: final isle of intrigue is Diego Garcia. My dad first

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Speaker 2: told me about d G. Diego Garcia when I was

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Speaker 2: a kid. So imagine a point, a little atoll in

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Speaker 2: the middle of the Indian Ocean below India and about

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Speaker 2: halfway between Tanzania and Bali. For decades, Diego Garcia has

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Speaker 2: been home to one of the most mysterious and secretive

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Speaker 2: military bases on the planet. Its strategic location, its military runway,

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Speaker 2: its fleet of long range bombers, and its ability to

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Speaker 2: reload submarines with weapons make it hugely important to the

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Speaker 2: US and the UK. But of course that base only

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Speaker 2: came about via a brutal history. Although Diego Garcia had

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Speaker 2: no indigenous population, enslaved people were brought there to work

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Speaker 2: on the atoll, on coconut plantations, and over several centuries

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Speaker 2: their own language and culture. In the nineteen sixties, the

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Speaker 2: Brits decided to kick them out in order to develop

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Speaker 2: the military base. They forcibly evicted all of the local

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Speaker 2: population to Mauritius and the Seychelles. For decades since, Mauritius

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Speaker 2: has fought for the island and its surrounding islands. The

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Speaker 2: surrounding archipelago. Chagosians, as people from the Chagos Islands are known,

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Speaker 2: have fought to return to their home, but I've always

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Speaker 2: assumed that I would never be able to go. The

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Speaker 2: island is rumored to be a CIA black site, and

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Speaker 2: according to a recent BBC report, only three journalists have

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Speaker 2: ever visited. One pretended to have a boat problem and

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Speaker 2: was only there for an hour and a half, another

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Speaker 2: stopped to refuel while traveling in a presidential plane, and

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Speaker 2: the most recent visitor had to agree to incredible restrictions

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Speaker 2: on her reporting and was barred from numerous areas and

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Speaker 2: accompanied by minders at all times. But yesterday came new

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Speaker 2: from Diego Garcia. After years of terse negotiations and an

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Speaker 2: ongoing legal dispute regarding a group of Tamil asylum seekers

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Speaker 2: being detained on the island, the UK and Mauritius announced

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Speaker 2: that sovereignty of Diego Garcia and the other Chagos Islands

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Speaker 2: is going to be passed to Mauritius. So will it

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Speaker 2: mean the Chagosians as people from the Chagos Islands are known,

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Speaker 2: will it mean they can return home? Probably not. Under

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Speaker 2: the deal, the long range bombers the submarines, the base

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Speaker 2: will remain for at least the next century. Its official

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Speaker 2: status might have changed, but for those of us who

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Speaker 2: trace the atoll across the world on our office wall,

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Speaker 2: Diego Garcia will be no more accessible and no less mysterious.

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Speaker 1: For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live

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Speaker 1: to Newstalks 'd B from nine am Saturday, or follow

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Speaker 1: the podcast on iHeartRadio.