From extinct mammals returning to NSW forest to a bit of Kiwi schadenfreude, there is some positive news out there

Tired of the never-ending cycle of internecine warfare that now passes as politics in Australia? Need a break from the rolling, roiling coverage of the government’s public meltdown?

Us too, actually. But don’t despair. Believe it or not, outside of Canberra the earth has continued to spin. Other things have happened, and some of them were quite good.

Here’s a short collection of things to make you feel slightly better about the state of everything.

Something to aspire to

Pining for a time when politics weren’t completely riven by conflict, self-interest and chaos? Well, we had to do a bit of digging, but we’ve found evidence that such a time did exist.

Archaeologists have discovered that 5,000 years ago herders in east Africa lived in peaceful communities that shunned social hierarchies, communicated intensively and worked co-operatively.

Unfortunately there weren’t any ancient east African herders still around to put their hand up for a run at the Liberal party leadership.

Kenya burial site shows community spirit of herders 5,000 years ago Read more

Where there’s life, there’s hope

Malcolm Turnbull’s government might be facing extinction, but things are looking markedly better for a small group of Australian mammals. The ABC reports that 10 native mammals that have been extinct in New South Wales for more than a century will be introduced into a national park in the state’s south-west.

The bridled nailtail wallaby, the brush-tailed bettong, the greater stick-nest rat, the red-tailed phascogale and the western barred bandicoot are all to be given a new lease on life as part of a rewilding project run by the Australian Wildlife Conservancy.

A brief respite

For the first time in two years Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian woman sentenced to five years in jail in Iran for spying, has been granted a temporary release from prison.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe, whose plight has left a shadow hanging over Iran-UK relations, was given a three-day furlough on Thursday morning, taking her and her family by surprise.

She has since been reunited with her four-year-old daughter, Gabriella, who has been in the care of her Iranian family since she was 22 months old.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe freed from Iran jail temporarily Read more

Something bad happening in New Zealand

New Zealand’s been having a fair bit of fun at our expense during this whole imbroglio, and they keep beating us in the rugby.

So we should feel free to engage in a bit schadenfreude at the news that two years after we first reported that an avocado shortage was fuelling a crime wave in the country, they still seem not to have figured it out.

The New York Times has published this piece pulling together the saga. An avocado tree in Auckland has been surrounded by razor wire and two robbers were caught fleeing an orchard carrying doona/duvet covers loaded with $4,300-worth of avocados.

Last year we reported that avocado thieves were selling their ill-gotten goods on Facebook.

Still, we don’t exactly have our hands clean when it comes to absurd avocado sagas.

There’s always someone worse off

Not exactly good news, but proof things could always be worse. It turns out we’re not the only country frantically doing the numbers. In Spain, there are mounting fears that pigs might soon outnumber people.

As far as political coups go it would be novel, but the concern is actually environmental. The BBC reports that pigs are responsible for 10% of all greenhouse gas emissions in the country, and are the fourth-largest producer after electricity, industry and transport.

We might not have been able to get a climate policy up for the last decade, but at least we don’t have to contend with flatulent porcine.