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Speaker 1: My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Aarunda

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Speaker 1: Bungelung Calcottin woman from Gadighl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges

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Speaker 1: that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the

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Speaker 1: Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres

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Speaker 1: Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the

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Speaker 1: first peoples of these countries, both past and present.

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Speaker 2: Good morning, and welcome to the Daily oz It is Monday,

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Speaker 2: the fourteenth of November.

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Speaker 3: I'm Billy, I'm Sam.

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Speaker 2: Now, last week we received confirmation that American basketball star

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Speaker 2: Britney Griner has been sent to a Russian penal colony. Now,

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Speaker 2: most prisons in Russia are penal colonies and are known

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Speaker 2: for their brutality, poor hygiene, and exposure to Russian propaganda. Now,

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Speaker 2: some of you may have never heard of Britney Griner.

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Speaker 2: I personally hadn't heard of her before this story happened

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Speaker 2: this year. But it is a really important story and

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Speaker 2: one that we have been keeping a close eye on

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Speaker 2: over the course of the year. I'll chat to Sam

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Speaker 2: to get all the answers on the story in today's

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Speaker 2: deep dive. But first, what's making headline Sam.

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Speaker 3: We'll start today's news over in the US, where the

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Speaker 3: Democrats will hold control of the Senate after narrow victories

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Speaker 3: in Nevada, New Hampshire and Arizona over the weekend. However,

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Speaker 3: the Republican Party looks most likely to win the two

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Speaker 3: hundred and eighteen seats needed to control the House, although

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Speaker 3: a number of key seats there remain undecided.

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Speaker 2: The G twenty Leader's Summit kicks off this week in Bali,

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Speaker 2: with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanesi, US President Joe Biden,

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Speaker 2: Chinese President GG Ping and many other world leaders flying

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Speaker 2: into Indonesia over the next twenty four hours. Russian President

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Speaker 2: Vladimir Pudin won't be attending, despite earlier confirmation from the

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Speaker 2: Kremlin he would attend.

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Speaker 3: Pharmacists in New South Wales have expanded powers from today,

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Speaker 3: with six vaccines including typhoid and hepatitis A and B,

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Speaker 3: now available at pharmacies as well as GPS. There will

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Speaker 3: also be a twelve month trial of pharmacists being granted

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Speaker 3: the power to diagnose and prescribe medication for UTIs, with

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Speaker 3: further inclusions in the scheme like contraception and medications for

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Speaker 3: gastro likely to be included later in the trial.

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Speaker 2: And today's good news, all public school students in Colorado

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Speaker 2: will now have access to free meals at school after

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Speaker 2: voters in the state approved a measure to raise taxes

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Speaker 2: on high net worth residents to pay for the scheme. Okay, Sam, So,

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Speaker 2: as I said before this year, I have to admit

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Speaker 2: I had never heard of Britney Griner. So for those

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Speaker 2: who are coming into this story fresh, I think we

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Speaker 2: need to start from the top. Who is Britney Griner.

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Speaker 3: So, Britney Griner is an American basketball player who has

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Speaker 3: won two Olympic gold medals and has been a WNBA

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Speaker 3: All Star on seven occasions. So I guess, to read

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Speaker 3: through the lines, here's a mega superstar. She's the only

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Speaker 3: NCAA player to both score two thousand points and block

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Speaker 3: five hundred points, which essentially means she's a terrific basketballer

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Speaker 3: in both attack and defense. The BBC actually described her

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Speaker 3: as quote widely considered to be the best female player

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Speaker 3: of all time. Now in the US, she plays for

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Speaker 3: the WNBA team, the Phoenix Mercury, and in every US

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Speaker 3: off season since twenty fourteen. So the US winter. She's

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Speaker 3: traveled to Russia to play for a team in their

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Speaker 3: Russian Premier League, which is their women's basketball competition.

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Speaker 2: Okay, I just say that was the most acronyms I

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Speaker 2: think I've ever heard.

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Speaker 3: She's the goat.

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Speaker 2: Yes, I think the TLDR there is that she's very

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Speaker 2: good at basketball. And I think one thing that is

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Speaker 2: important to note is that it's actually quite common for

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Speaker 2: US female basketball players to play in Russia during their

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Speaker 2: off season because they aren't paid the same as their

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Speaker 2: male counterpart in the NBA. So that's why she was

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Speaker 2: traveling to Russia where this story starts. So what happened

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Speaker 2: at the airport when she arrived in Moscow?

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Speaker 3: So we're going back to February here, and Brittany Granner

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Speaker 3: was arrested at a Moscow airport after vape cartridges containing

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Speaker 3: cannabis oil, which is illegal in Russia but it is

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Speaker 3: lawful in some parts of the US, were found in

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Speaker 3: her luggage. Now, she was caught with less than a

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Speaker 3: gram of oil and had been prescribed to the cannabis

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Speaker 3: oil in Arizona. The thirty one year old says she

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Speaker 3: used the cannabis oil as a painkiller and that they

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Speaker 3: were packed by accident.

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Speaker 2: I just want to take a step back. You said

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Speaker 2: that this happened in February. Can you just put that

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Speaker 2: in the timeline of where are we in terms of

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Speaker 2: Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

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Speaker 3: So Grana was arrested about seven days before Russia's invasion

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Speaker 3: of Ukraine. So an incredibly tense period where we were

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Speaker 3: learning that this could happen. There was a massing of

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Speaker 3: troops on the border, but nothing had actually happened yet.

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Speaker 2: And so what happened once she was arrested.

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Speaker 3: Well, she pleaded guilty to the drug charges, but she

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Speaker 3: said there was no intense to break the law. Now,

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Speaker 3: she was sentenced to nine years in prison. She was

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Speaker 3: also fined about twenty four thousand dollars as part of

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Speaker 3: the sentence. The reason I wanted to talk about her

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Speaker 3: today was that Britney Griner is back in the news

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Speaker 3: following confirmation from her lawyers that she's now being transported

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Speaker 3: from a jail to a penal colony. Now, the transfer

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Speaker 3: began two Fridays ago, but Grinner's representatives weren't notified until

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Speaker 3: last Tuesday. Her lawyers also told media they don't know

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Speaker 3: which prison she's going to and don't expect to know

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Speaker 3: for up to two weeks.

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Speaker 2: There has been so much secrecy around what has happened

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Speaker 2: with Britney Griner. Can you explain what the response has

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Speaker 2: been from the US throughout all of this, Well.

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Speaker 3: I think before we dive into what the US officials

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Speaker 3: have said about Britney Griner, I kind of want to

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Speaker 3: give you the overarching theory here, and the overarching theory

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Speaker 3: from US officials is that Russia may be using Griner

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Speaker 3: as leverage in response to the really harsh sanctions that

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Speaker 3: Western nations have put on Russia as a consequence of

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Speaker 3: its invasion of Ukraine.

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Speaker 2: So it's kind of this theory that she's like a

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Speaker 2: political prisoner almost.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, So her wife actually describes her as a politic

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Speaker 3: porn and is calling on the US to do more

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Speaker 3: because some people think that she's now essentially a symbol

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Speaker 3: for the US in Russia. And that's why I think

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Speaker 3: there was a bit of reluctance from the US to

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Speaker 3: directly respond straight away. In the first two months of

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Speaker 3: Griner's detainment, I think it's fair to say there was

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Speaker 3: a bit going on in the geopolitical sense, and it

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Speaker 3: was really uncertain what the future of the region would

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Speaker 3: look like. But then everything did change in May when

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Speaker 3: the language from the US Department of State shifted to

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Speaker 3: be more about how Griner had been wrongfully detained, and

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Speaker 3: that was the first sign that we got that there

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Speaker 3: was really a tension over this arrest. That was also

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Speaker 3: then followed by this discussion of a prisoner exchange with Russia,

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Speaker 3: which would allow Griner to return to the US in

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Speaker 3: exchange for Russian prisoners held in American prisons.

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Speaker 2: We're going to take a quick break, but first, here

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Speaker 2: is a message from our sponsors. Interesting. Can you explain

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Speaker 2: that term prisoner exchange more and what it could possibly

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Speaker 2: look like in this specific context.

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Speaker 3: Well, as you can imagine, there's not much that we

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Speaker 3: know in terms of the detail around a plan that

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Speaker 3: has such high stakes like this, But what we do

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Speaker 3: know is that the US has already made an offer

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Speaker 3: to Russia. Now, the US offered to send Victor boot,

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Speaker 3: a Russian prisoner currently held in the US for selling

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Speaker 3: weapons to terrorist groups, back to Russia in exchange for

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Speaker 3: two American detainees in Russia, including Britney Greiner. And just

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Speaker 3: this week, US President Joe Biden said he hoped Russian

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Speaker 3: President Vladimir Putin would be quote willing to talk more

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Speaker 3: seriously about a prisoner exchange with the US. Now that

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Speaker 3: the midterm elections are.

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Speaker 2: Over, Can you just explain that a little bit more,

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Speaker 2: Because the US is saying, well, give you one prisoner

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Speaker 2: if you give us two back. How is that fair?

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Speaker 2: What does the US say there?

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Speaker 3: Well, I think the US knows they're on the back

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Speaker 3: foot here and that Russia are in a position of power.

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Speaker 3: And the other thing to consider here is that vicked

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Speaker 3: about the prisoner who they're saying they'll give back to

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Speaker 3: Russia is a really serious criminal and he's been found

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Speaker 3: guilty of some really really serious crimes. So it's kind

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Speaker 3: of a bit of a two for one equals one

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Speaker 3: for one situation. But it does feel weird to be

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Speaker 3: reducing a political conflict to the swapping of.

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Speaker 2: Prisoners until that happens, or I should say, if that happens,

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Speaker 2: Griner will be in a penal colony. Right, So what

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Speaker 2: exactly is the difference between a penal colony and a prison.

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Speaker 3: So Russian penal colonies are generally outside major metropolitan areas,

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Speaker 3: so you won't find them in the middle of the city,

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Speaker 3: and they're essentially prison camps where prisoners are housed in

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Speaker 3: barracks and often perform some sort of labor during their

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Speaker 3: days there. Now there are some penal colonies in Russia

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Speaker 3: that pay prisoners for their labor, but the money is

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Speaker 3: really negligible. Most Russian penal colonies were built during the

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Speaker 3: Soviet Union era, and today they actually make up the

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Speaker 3: majority of Russian prisons. There's thought to be about eight

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Speaker 3: hundred penal colonies in Russia today and they're housing about

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Speaker 3: half a million prisoners. Now. Penal colonies are notorious for

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Speaker 3: being cramped, cold and dirty. Prisoners sleep in large rooms

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Speaker 3: with iron bunk beds, so there's no single person cells

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Speaker 3: in penal colonies, and they often house fifty to sixty

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Speaker 3: people in a room. And the first thing you do

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Speaker 3: every morning is seeing the Russian national anthem, and all

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Speaker 3: reading and writing is banned besides Russian propaganda material.

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Speaker 2: Right, so it's an extremely grim picture. What happens from here.

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Speaker 3: Well, this latest development seems to have really galvanized the

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Speaker 3: US in their response to attempting different ways to get

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Speaker 3: Britney Griner out of this situation. The US Secretary of

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Speaker 3: State Anthony Blincoln said Griner's transfer to the penal colony

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Speaker 3: was quote another injustice layered on her ongoing unjust and

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Speaker 3: wrongful detention. We also heard from the WNBA Players Association.

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Speaker 3: The body said it was crushed by the news of

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Speaker 3: Grinder's transfer and that quote a lack of clarity and

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Speaker 3: transparency in the process compounds this pain. In terms of

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Speaker 3: Griner's legal defense, her defense team said they would appeal

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Speaker 3: the verdict and they accused the Russian courts of ignoring

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Speaker 3: the evidence they presented during the trial.

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Speaker 2: It's a really devastating case no matter how you look

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Speaker 2: at it, and we will definitely keep you updated on

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Speaker 2: the Daily Odds Instagram and on the Daily Odds podcast.

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Speaker 2: Thank you so much for listening to this episode and

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Speaker 2: we will be back tomorrow