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Speaker 1: Good morning everyone. Welcome to Wednesday, the eighteenth of August.

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Speaker 1: My name is Sam and I'm joined by Zara. It's

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Speaker 1: been another big twenty four hours of news, but we

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Speaker 1: are here to take you all through. We put up

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Speaker 1: on our Instagram yesterday what questions do you have at

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Speaker 1: the moment, And there's one question that really stood out

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Speaker 1: to us in sheer numbers really, I mean, the amount

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Speaker 1: of responses we got along these lines were plentiful. So

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Speaker 1: today we're going to take the opportunity to explain what

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Speaker 1: is the Taliban and take a few steps back to

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Speaker 1: understand the historical context behind that group and how we

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Speaker 1: got to where we are today. Zara, what's happening around

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Speaker 1: the country with COVID nineteen.

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Speaker 2: Yesterday in New South Wales there were four hundred and

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Speaker 2: fifty two locally acquired cases, so that was a minor

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Speaker 2: decrease in the previous day's cases, with at least thirty

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Speaker 2: of those cases infectious in the community and again close

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Speaker 2: to three hundred under investigation. There was, sadly also one

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Speaker 2: death recorded. Over in Victory, Khoria, there were twenty four

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Speaker 2: locally acquired cases, twenty one of those were linked and

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Speaker 2: ten were infectious in the community. We've seen a cluster

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Speaker 2: growing around an engagement party that was held illegally recently.

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Speaker 2: And here's what Premier Dan Andrews said about the commentary

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Speaker 2: that has surrounded this illegal gathering.

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Speaker 3: Any Semitism is unacceptable and evil and we have a

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Speaker 3: zero tolerance approach to that in our state. The event

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Speaker 3: that we spoke about at some link yesterday was not

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Speaker 3: a function of being Jewish. It was a stupid function.

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Speaker 3: It was an illegal function. Those people are being dealt

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Speaker 3: with then breaking the rules was not a reflection on

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Speaker 3: the Jewish community.

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Speaker 1: More broadly over to our nation's capital and there were

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Speaker 1: seventeen locally acquired COVID nineteen cases in the Act yesterday

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Speaker 1: with seven three hundred and eighty tests carried out in

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Speaker 1: the Northern Territory. There were no new cases of COVID

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Speaker 1: on its first day of the snap lockdown, but three

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Speaker 1: hundred people were identified as close and casual contacts of

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Speaker 1: the initial case.

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Speaker 4: To the men and women of our ADF in Australia's veterans,

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Speaker 4: I know today is a day of sadness and reflection

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Speaker 4: for Afghanistan veterans. It's a time of deep and uncomfortable

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Speaker 4: questioning and that is only right. We shouldn't hide from it.

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Speaker 4: The scenes from Carble have been absolutely heartbreaking.

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Speaker 2: That was Scott Morrison yesterday speaking at a press conference

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Speaker 2: about how Australia is responding to the crisis in Afghanistan. Yesterday,

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Speaker 2: the government announced that no Afghan visa holder in Australia

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Speaker 2: will be asked to return to Afghanistan during this unstable time.

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Speaker 2: Despite all of this, Morrison did say yesterday that not

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Speaker 2: all Afghan interpreters and other staff will be able to

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Speaker 2: be evacuated to Australia.

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Speaker 1: And today's good news, the Biden administration has approved a

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Speaker 1: measure to permanently boost food stamp benefits by twenty five percent.

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Speaker 1: Across the United States, there's forty two million recipients of

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Speaker 1: food stamps and they receive average benefits for food stamps

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Speaker 1: officially known as the SNAP program, that will now be

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Speaker 1: twenty five five percent above pre pandemic levels. This program

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Speaker 1: kicks off in October this year.

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Speaker 2: A lot of our listenership and our readership on Instagram

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Speaker 2: might not be overly familiar with the Taliban because they

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Speaker 2: kind of faded from the forefront of news reporting back

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Speaker 2: in two thousand and one, at least in Western news

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Speaker 2: reporting after they were toppled in Afghanistan by Allied forces.

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Speaker 2: But this is not where the story of the Taliban starts.

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Speaker 2: So the Taliban, which directly translates to students in English,

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Speaker 2: is an Islamist militant group in Afghanistan. They have origins

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Speaker 2: back in the nineteen seventies in northern Pakistan, but started

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Speaker 2: to really emerge in the nineties and started consolidating power

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Speaker 2: and territory. Then in nineteen ninety six they took power

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Speaker 2: in Afghanistan and began to govern.

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Speaker 1: One really important point to mention here, and I've seen

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Speaker 1: this on social media a lot in the last few days,

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Speaker 1: is this notion of the US indirectly funded the Taliban.

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Speaker 1: And it's at this point of time, the seventies, eighties,

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Speaker 1: and nineties that we're talking about where this political idea

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Speaker 1: stems from. This original reporting was done around the late

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Speaker 1: seventies by Washington Post journalist Carl Bernstein, and he found

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Speaker 1: that the US funded and supplied weapons to the muja

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Speaker 1: Hadeen rebels as they were going up against the USSR

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Speaker 1: today that is Russia and the USSR had evaded Afghanistan

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Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy nine. The muja Hadeen rebels won in

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Speaker 1: that conflict. You've got to remember that the USSR and

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Speaker 1: America were sworn enemies here. But factions of this newly

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Speaker 1: armed Mujahadeen rebels eventually evolved into the Taliban. And that's

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Speaker 1: where the idea the US indirectly funded the Taliban comes from.

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Speaker 2: So then if we fast forward a bit, just before

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Speaker 2: two thousand and one, the Taliban was in power, and

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Speaker 2: that power took the form of Sharia laws. So that

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Speaker 2: was implemented across the country, and there's no sugarcoating it.

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Speaker 2: Under Sharia law, women were oppressed, there were extremely public

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Speaker 2: and visceral displays of punishment, and ancient sites were destroyed

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Speaker 2: during this time. This all changed after the Allies invaded

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Speaker 2: in two thousand and one following the event of nine

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Speaker 2: to eleven.

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Speaker 1: The Taliban was officially defeated in Afghanistan on December sixth,

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Speaker 1: two thousand and one, which was less than three months

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Speaker 1: after the nine to eleven attacks. Since then, a twenty

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Speaker 1: year gap, the Taliban has been engaged in what can

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Speaker 1: best be described as guerrilla warfare against the US, and

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Speaker 1: that includes its allies, which is of course Australia. All

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Speaker 1: this time, simultaneously, US led forces were arming the Afghan

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Speaker 1: army and the democratically led government with weaponry and resources

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Speaker 1: in the hope that when they left and withdrew from Afghanistan,

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Speaker 1: that this new Afghan army would be able to defend

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Speaker 1: a Taliban invasion attempt.

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Speaker 2: Presumably that was in mind when President Donald Trump signed

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Speaker 2: a peace deal in twenty twenty. So just to underscore

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Speaker 2: that while Joe Biden has overseen the withdrawal of US forces,

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Speaker 2: it was actually Donald Trump who signed the peace deal,

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Speaker 2: and that idea was that the US was to gradually

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Speaker 2: withdraw and in exchange there would be a Taliban commitment

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Speaker 2: not to assist or harbor terrorists. This was agreed and

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Speaker 2: as Sam said, the two parties committed to supporting a

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Speaker 2: democratic government, which was the understanding up until recently.

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Speaker 1: And that kind of takes us to May of this year,

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Speaker 1: when US led forces began to withdraw and the Taliban

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Speaker 1: immediately moved into cities around the periphery of the country

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Speaker 1: and made their way into the situation that we've seen

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Speaker 1: this week with the occupation of the capital of the country. Kabul.

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Speaker 1: This is a rapidly evolving situation, but it does look

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Speaker 1: like that the Taliban will be recognized by a number

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Speaker 1: of countries as the governing body of Afghanistan and the

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Speaker 1: country will return to a state of sharia law.

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Speaker 2: Just before we finish off, because again this was a

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Speaker 2: question that was put to us, how is the Taliban funded?

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Speaker 2: And there's some good literature on this and it points

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Speaker 2: out a number of key streams of revenue for the Taliban.

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Speaker 2: The most important and significant form of revenue for the

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Speaker 2: Taliban has actually been drugs, which in and of itself

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Speaker 2: is incompatible with the way that they govern, but drugs

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Speaker 2: are a major source of funds. Afghanistan accounted for an

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Speaker 2: estimated eighty four percent of global opium production over the

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Speaker 2: five years ending in twenty twenty, and a lot of

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Speaker 2: these profits do go to the Taliban because the group

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Speaker 2: manages opium in the areas that are under their control,

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Speaker 2: which of course has expanded very recently. There is also

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Speaker 2: money coming in from mining iron ore, marble, copper, gold,

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Speaker 2: and zinc, as well as taxes, donations from other countries,

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Speaker 2: funding from other countries, and exports.

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Speaker 1: It's a lot of information to take in. We have

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Speaker 1: a great array of articles on this issue over on

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Speaker 1: our Instagram if you want to take a little bit

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Speaker 1: more time to delve into some of the nuances. What

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Speaker 1: we do know though, is that this is going to

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Speaker 1: be one of the biggest stories of our generation, and

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Speaker 1: we'd really encourage you guys to ask questions of us.

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Speaker 1: We're here to help you understand what's going on in

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Speaker 1: the world. That's all we've got time for today, though,

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Speaker 1: and we'll see you back here tomorrow.