Insect skewers, lonely lions and Russia’s spies Down Under
Ahoy.
An aperol spritz lies on the other side of the ‘send’ button so the proof reading will be left to you. God speed.
World news this week:
Insect skewers, lonely lions and Russia’s spies Down Under
Picture: Jacob the lion. (Alex Braczkowski/Griffith University)
Europe
Non, je ne regrette Le Pen → In the final round of the French legislative elections, the Republique told Marine Le Pen and the far-right National Rally to take a long walk off a short pier into the English Channel. Well, they still won nine million votes but you get it. The results were a surprise to anyone who doesn’t really understand France — which is to say everyone, including the French.
The second-round elections were like a glass of Burgundy wine: easy to swallow but with an aftertaste of dirt. After the extreme right won the first round by the length of a frog’s leg, National Rally slipped to third place following the impossible-to-briefly-summarise candidate run-offs.
The New Popular Front leftist coalition, led by Mélenchon, won but without a majority, followed by President Macron’s Ensemble, and then Le Pen’s National Rally. Now, it’s expected that Macron will form an alliance with the more moderate parties in the NPF. Macron’s controversial decision to hold snap elections three years early wasn’t exactly a hit. He was labeled “arrogant,” “narcissistic,” and “deranged,” but this manoeuvre makes him seem every bit as deserving of the presidency as his agelessly smug face suggests.
The main bone of contention between the left bloc and Macron is his pension reform. In 2023, Macron tried to raise the pension age from 62 to — pause for dramatic effect. Sit down. Grab a stress ball, a scream pillow, your emotional support papillon — 64. The left vehemently opposed it because working is just so bourgeois! Sixty-four, for reference, is still younger than the global average, but that didn’t stop more than a million French citizens from starting strikes and protests, including riots, looting and piling up garbage in the streets in 2023. More protests to come. Vive La République!
Asia
Crunchy time → In a move that would make France proud, Singapore has given the green light to eating insects. The government has approved 16 species of insects for human consumption, including crickets, grubs, moth larvae and honeybees. The Singapore Food Agency (SFA) insists this decision is because the insect industry is “nascent” and they are “a new food item here”. It turns out the EU has already approved four insects while Australia has three “non-novel, non-traditional” food sources (crickets and two mealworm species). I beg your pardon, but, non-novel? If someone wants to write in and say eating mealworms isn’t new to them, you can contact help@headspace.com.
Look, I know it’s a somewhat cultural thing but I had pet stick insects as a kid so for me it’s a moral issue. Stick insects are friends, not food. And yes, I was cool in primary school — thanks for asking. The United Nations has been promoting bug consumption for years as the eco-friendly protein source of the future. But nobody listens to the UN and I’d sooner order arsenic off the menu than worms. Don’t even get me started on the pig extremities they are serving here in Europe.
Australia
From Russia with love → A Brisbane couple with Russian passports has become the inaugural duo charged under Australia’s espionage laws after being caught allegedly spying for Russia. The duo, a 40-year-old woman from the Australian Defence Force and her 62-year-old husband, stand accused of preparing for espionage — espionage foreplay, if you will.
Australian Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw explained the woman allegedly took non-declared trips to Russia while her husband logged into her official work account and attempted to send secrets to Mother Russia.
As spy stories go, this one’s pretty disappointing. Gone are the days of Soviet KGB agents with shoe pistols and sexy accomplices. Now it’s just a matter of logging into a computer and sending the top secret Vegemite recipe to Moscow. How the mighty have fallen.
The Americas
More of the same, again → Biden is still old. Well, even older actually. And his latest attempts to shut down speculation have only got worse. During a major press conference to quell the haters and the naysayers, Biden misnamed his own vice president Kamala Harris as Trump. To be fair, it could happen to anybody. I called my boss’s boss by my boss’s boss’s boss’s name at a work function just one week ago.
Politicians’ jobs are truly insane. We expect them to be conversant in literally hundreds of disparate issues from nuclear power and the Levant to insect consumption and actuarial economics. Then we expect them to travel 18 hours a day, sleep two and answer gotchya questions for six. But we expect them to get world leaders’ names right.
Biden also referred to Ukrainian President Zelenskyy as President Putin and called his Chiefs-of-Staff his Commanders-in-Chief. It shows he would be really good at playing the word association game Taboo but doesn’t shut down the doubts about his mental acuity.
“The only thing age does is create a little bit of wisdom if you pay attention,” Biden said this week. This would be beautiful if it were true but age also weakens your bowel control, gives you a turkey neck and makes you forget which Eastern European is a tyrant and which one you’re giving $60 billion to. President Biden undoubtedly has much greater wisdom than his opponent and perhaps all the other candidates, but how well can he remember any of it?
Africa
Simba on the prowl → Two lions have been filmed swimming 1.5km across a predator infested African river in their search for lionesses. I get it fellas, it’s tough out there for a Leo. The two brothers, Jacob and Tibu, crossed the Kazinga Channel in Uganda hoping to find some ladies on the other side as the lion population has been decimated by human activity.
Griffith University’s Dr Alexander Braczkowski said: “Competition for lionesses in the park is fierce and they lost a fight for female affection in the hours leading up to the swim, so it’s likely the duo mounted the risky journey to get to the females on the other side of the channel.” Boy, have I been there.
Jacob the lion, for some background, has also survived being gored by a buffalo, lost his family to poacher poison, was caught in a snare and also lost part of a limb in another steel trap. And this fella still can’t impress the ladies.
The lion population in the Ugandan park has halved over the past five years due to human-related incidents like poisoning and electrocution. The gender ratio has been shattered and the ecosystem is against my lion brethren. This week’s measly newsletter donation is to lion conservation. Hang in there boys.
Antarctica
Penguin tuxedo sale → Buy one get one freeze.
(I came up with that on the spot and I wish somebody was here to see it.)