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donation today that's Spikes hyphen online dot com forward slash donate hello and welcome to the spike podcast. I'm Fraser Myers and with me this week as ever for the first episode of 2020 we have Spikes editor Tom Slater.

Hello and spike columnist Ella Wielen.

Hi. Coming up on the show no vacu. Tom Slater and Spike columnist Ella Wheeland.

Hi.

Coming up on the show, Novak Jokovich's detainment in Australia,

the anniversary of the Capitol Riot,

big tech censorship and the toppling of the Edward Colston statue.

So the world's number one tennis player Novak Jokovich is currently detained in Australia. His visa has been revoked in advance of the Australian Open and this is to do with the fact that Australia has some pretty stringent controls on who can come in and especially in relation to the COVID vaccine?

Tom you've written about this this week, do you want to tell us the story?

Yeah I think this story is quite crazy actually, I mean not for the first time during the pandemic Australia just completely lost its mind really

And I think this is another example of that. I mean the details of this are a little bit complicated as you say I mean it seems like so to get into

Australia and to play at the Australian Open you need to have been vaccinated or

have one of very few medical exemptions to it it seems like Novak Jokovich who is known for being anti-vax

essentially and for not being vaccinated and for being pretty relaxed about COVID I think it's

fair to say as well said that he had gained the medical exemption from the relevant authorities

But in the process of him flying to Australia from Dubai

It seemed as if there was a problem with his visa. He'd apply for the wrong one, he was stopped at the border,

detained as you say, and is awaiting an appeal in a kind of immigration hotel in a slightly down- a hill part of Melbourne.

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