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Chapter 1: What is the status of the Iran ceasefire and upcoming negotiations?
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Good morning, I'm Alice Dempster.
And I'm Andrew Williams.
It's Wednesday the 22nd of April. In your squiz today, time runs down on the Iran ceasefire, a backflip on support at home, Tim Cook hangs up his phone, and a birthday fit for a queen. This is your squiz today. Andrew, the ceasefire between the US, Israel and Iran is going to expire in the next day or so. And there's still no sign that peace talks will be going ahead in Pakistan.
We mentioned yesterday that the White House said Vice President J.D. Vance would be leading the negotiations there. But this morning, it looks like he's still in Washington. Reports say that he's staying there until Iran commits to the talks.
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Chapter 2: What changes has the Albanese government made regarding support at home?
And they're certainly not showing much sign of doing that at this point. A foreign ministry spokesman says that Iran still hasn't decided if it'll show as of this morning. They're blaming mixed messages from the US for that potential absence. So that leaves a lot of questions about what comes next. First of all, it's not exactly clear when the ceasefire expires, speaking of mixed messages.
So Pakistan, who's mediating this conflict, said it was 9.50 this morning, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane time. But Iranian state media and US President Donald Trump have both said it's later, as late as tomorrow morning in the case of Iranian state media. So One possibility is that the ceasefire ends up getting extended beyond the current two-week period.
That's something that Pakistan is pushing for, but US President Donald Trump doesn't seem keen on that idea.
No, he wants to strike a deal and he says his military is raring to go, in his words, if that doesn't happen. And the other thing is that Israel and Lebanon are also scheduled to hold another round of talks in Washington tomorrow. That's over their own 10-day ceasefire, which has now passed its halfway point.
So we'll see if they go ahead as well and whether whatever happens today influences that tomorrow. So everyone's just kind of waiting at the moment.
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Chapter 3: What are the implications of Tim Cook stepping down as Apple's CEO?
And we're also waiting in the Strait of Hormuz to see what happens there. There's no reopening date set there yet. That will probably also depend on what happens at these talks. As of now, the US is still blocking ships from trying to reach Iranian ports in the region.
And one thing that's happened there is that it's left an estimated 20,000 commercial and civilian seafarers stranded on 2,000 ships, many of them unable to communicate with the outside world, some of them running out of food as they wait for a resolution on this. So yesterday, the head of the UN's Maritime Agency called on the companies that operate these ships to
to do more to help the people on board, particularly around mental health challenges, given that they've been stuck there for well over six weeks now.
Captain Ramar Kapoor is one of those stranded sailors. He spoke to the ABC last night and he said that everyone is scared and his crew has seen missile attacks on nearby ships. So, like you say, he's one of many waiting for something to happen.
Music
The Albanese government's made a bit of a backflip today. It's all about a policy that saw some older Aussies charged money for basic needs like showering and dressing.
This was part of a new support at home scheme that began in November last year. The idea was that...
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Chapter 4: How is New Zealand's political landscape affecting Prime Minister Christopher Luxon?
Some people on their plans could be charged up to $50 an hour for those fairly basic services in an attempt to save taxpayer money, but advocacy groups for older Australians were not happy with this idea at all. They've been saying for months now that showering is a right, and that has forced a back down from the government today.
Aged care minister Sam Ray admitted, yes, things like showering and dressing weren't optional extras, and he says they'll be covered again as of October.
Health Minister Mark Butler is expected to talk more about it at a speech at the National Press Club today, and he's also expected to reveal big changes to the NDIS. They're ones that the government's been flagging for some time. So that should be a big story today to keep an eye on. We haven't spoken much about our friends across the ditch recently, but we probably will be.
New Zealand's PM Christopher Luxon called for a leadership spill yesterday, came after a week of increasing speculation over his position in the media.
Now, he survived that spill, but this might not be the end of this story. So just for context, if you're not familiar with New Zealand politics, Luxon became Prime Minister in 2023, and he hasn't even taken the National Party he leads to a new election yet. But economic troubles, high unemployment have put a really big dent in his popularity over recent months. In fact, a recent poll showed that
The current coalition that he leads on the sort of centre-right of politics could lose the next election just after winning one. And his popularity has actually sunk below the man he beat in that 2023 election, Labor leader Chris Hipkins.
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Chapter 5: What memorial plans are in place to honor Queen Elizabeth II's legacy?
So Luxon has survived that spill, but analysts say that he's still not out of the woods yet. There's a chance he still won't make it to the next election on the 7th of November as leader. A message now from NIB Insurance. When you're planning a trip, there's the fun stuff, flights, accommodation, what to pack, and then there's the practical side.
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Cover is subject to the terms, conditions, limitations and exclusions outlined in the PDS. Consider the PDS, TMD and if this product is right for you. Issuer Pacific International Insurance. If you're listening to us this morning on an iPhone, you can probably partly thank Tim Cook for that. He's the 65-year-old Apple boss, although he won't be the boss there much longer.
He announced yesterday that he's stepping down after 15 years in the role.
And while he didn't give a sort of specific reason for that, he said it's been the greatest privilege to be CEO, and he took over from the late co-founder of Apple, Steve Jobs, in 2011.
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Chapter 6: What controversies surround the new Michael Jackson biographical film?
He's overseen a quadrupling of Apple's annual profit since then to over $153 billion a year. So he's not falling far from the tree. He'll become the executive chair of Apple's board of directors, sorry, onboarding new CEO John Ternes, who is Apple's current head of hardware engineering.
And so that new CEO will pick up on the 1st of September, and he's taking the reins at one of the most profitable companies in the world. So that's a pretty big promotion.
Not least because Apple's been facing regulatory pressures in the form of an upcoming antitrust trial in the US, along with high turnover at the executive level and also what critics say has been slow AI development. Ternus isn't worried about any of that, though. He says he's filled with optimism about the years to come. Andrew, this might come as a shock to our regular listeners, or maybe not.
Neither of us are quite close to 100 years old yet. We have still got a while off, but it's pretty well known that anyone who is turning 100 gets a letter from the king or previously the queen. What's less clear, though, is what a king or queen gets when they turn 100.
We're assuming it's not a letter from themselves, but the reason, of course, that you bring that up is because if Queen Elizabeth II was still alive, she would have marked her 100th birthday yesterday. She died nearly four years ago now. That time has just flown by.
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Chapter 7: What insights were shared in the recent Squiz Shortcut episode?
But the milestone was marked by King Charles in a video message for his darling mama, as he put it, honouring her service. There was a bunch of other stuff going on around this as well. The public got a first look at a statue of Her Majesty that will sit in St James' Park beside one of the late Prince Philip. That's not yet. That'll happen in around two years' time when it's finished.
This is all part of a big memorial project, which also includes a new bridge resembling a tiara. We've spoken about this before. There's been a lot of effort that's gone into this.
There's also a website called queenelizabeth.com that's been donated as a digital memorial to share memories of the Queen. We'll link to that in the episode notes today if you want to take a look. A standout memory of her from King Charles, though, he says, that marvellous twinkle of her eye when sharing a marmalade sandwich with Paddington Bear in the final months of her life.
Squeeze the day now. The new Michael Jackson biographical film, Michael, opens in Australian cinemas today. Given the subject, it's been a bit of a controversial release and critics haven't been very kind to it either.
No, sitting at 33% on Rotten Tomatoes at the moment, which means, if you're not familiar with that website, basically only a third of critics liked or recommended Rotten Tomatoes. the film, which is not a great average. So we'll see how the audiences respond and how many people turn up. Just quickly, also, we had a special guest star on yesterday's Squiz Shortcut.
Claire Kimball, of course, is from the electorate of Farrar, which has a big by-election coming up on the 9th of May. So she joined me for a bit of local insight into what that electorate is like, what the big issues are there, and what the stakes are for this federal by-election that's coming up.
Yeah, it's a good one. You'll find that one episode back in this feed now. Thanks for listening today. We'll be back with you again tomorrow.
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