Saturday Extra - Separate Stories Podcast

Following the release of the latest IPCC report, and ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in November, we’re running a new series looking at the how people are spearheading the transition to net zero across the country, putting technologies and ideas into action in a way that makes commercial sense. This month, we hear about developments in the agriculture sector

Last week Ebrahim Raisi was sworn in as Iran’s new president. Despite his past criticisms, the conservative hardliner has signalled that he will continue negotiations aimed at restoring Iran’s 2015 Nuclear Deal with the United States (the ‘JCPOA’). But domestic challenges, regional tensions and his own political background are likely to have a bearing on where Iran heads under President Raisi. 

On 4 August 2020, Theodore Ell was living in Beirut, Lebanon, when an explosion erupted at the local port, killing more than 200 people and injuring thousands more. Ell and his wife, a diplomat, survived, but were badly shaken. Ell turned his experience into the personal essay ‘Façades of Lebanon’, which went on to win the 2021 Calibre Essay Prize. The essay was published in the July 2021 edition of the Australian Book Review.

Around the world atrocities are occurring at a concerning rate and, despite the legal frameworks established in the wake of the horrors of the Second World War, those behind these violations aren’t being held to account. David Miliband, President and CEO of the International Rescue Committee, warns that we’ve entered the ‘Age of Impunity’, and that liberal democracies in particular must confront the challenge of how we reverse this trajectory.

Australian of the year, Grace Tame is a 2021 Poetry Month Ambassador and this is her reading her poem 'Hard Pressed'.

Afterpay's 39 billion dollar sale to Square, owned by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, has delivered windfalls for thousands of Australian investors. A new book "Buy Now, Pay Later - the extraordinary story of Afterpay" unpacks the story of the two founders and delivers a masterclass in entrepreneurship.

With the final US and NATO soldiers expected to be out of Afghanistan by the end of this month, an emboldened Taliban has turned its guns on key provincial capitals, after having taken control of much of the countryside and key border crossings.

With house prices skyrocketing in Australia and New Zealand, the Human Rights Commission in NZ has called an inquiry into the impacts.  So, do aspirations around home ownership need change, or does government need to pull more levers to re-align pricing with wages?

Sunday marks 75 years since the Australian National University first opened its doors to students, but the world is now a very different place to what it was back in 1946.

It’s been 75 years since one great power has been to war with another directly. That’s the longest interval in several thousand years, but historian Gwynne Dyer believes we could soon see this change if we don’t take time to examine our relationship with war.

Southeast Asia has quickly become the region hardest hit by the Covid-19 pandemic, with many countries that successfully held off the pandemic last year now suffering from the spread of the Delta variant. The domestic social, economic and political ramifications could be significant, and they come at a time when the region is of growing geopolitical significance to the US and China.

Throughout the Covid pandemic people have been reminded of the key role of government in troubling times. But a new report says Australia's governance has deteriorated over the past decade. So what are the big issues facing the country moving forward?

The slow rollout of vaccines in Australia is underpinned by the fact that mRNA vaccines, like Pfizer and Moderna, aren’t made in Australia, and supplies of these vaccines from overseas has been uncertain and limited. The federal government is now considering a dozen proposals to manufacture these vaccines in Australia, but what will take to get this off the ground? 

Vera Deakin was the youngest daughter of Australia's second Prime Minister Alfred Deakin. She was well educated, musically gifted and spent time in Germany and Hungary studying music in 1914. She was in London when Great Britain declared war on Germany and she was desperate to join the troops but was of the wrong gender. But the Great War did offer her a chance to change the course of her life and to leave a lasting legacy. She headed up the Australian Red Cross Wounded and Missing Enquiry office, first in Cairo and later in London. Her reports are still used today to find missing soldiers.

An expected baby bounce since the initial Covid lockdowns has failed to eventuate and fertility rates across the globe are at record lows. While some people welcome the prospect of a smaller global population, a fundamental shift to fewer babies will result in serious consequences for our future world.

More than half of the country is under strict lockdown measures due to a recent outbreak of the virulent Delta strain. Humans are social animals, and loneliness and disconnection are beginning to take a toll. What can we do to improve not only our own mental health, but the collective mental health of families, friends and colleagues?  

Historian Frank Bongiorno returns to his birth town of Nhill in north-western Victoria for the first time in more than 25 years to reflect on the historical complexities of a rural region ‘transformed by migration’. Tracing the arrival of the Bongiorno family from Italy in the late 1800s he explores how the migrant experience has shaped rural Australia.

New York Times bestselling author Gayle Tzemach Lemmon tells the incredible true story of the all-female Kurdish militia that defied the odds, and became part of the world's best hope for stopping ISIS in Syria.

Conservationist and writer Claire Dunn in 2010 escaped to the bush for twelve months to connect again with nature and find her wild self. She wrote about this experience in My year without Matches. A few years later she returned to the city, to Melbourne, and knew she had to build a bridge between the bush and the city to survive and retain all that she learnt during her year bush. With like minded people she has found a city that offers so much within the suburban streets. In Rewidling the Urban Soul: searching for the wild in the city she encourages others to not only observe the fauna and flora that surrounds us but to also feel part of that nature.

Former Ambassador to China Geoff Raby says you can't be an idealogue and you need to have a great memory to be a successful diplomat. It also helps if you are widely read, have a good personality and can keep up with some of the more extensive dinners! Geoff discusses the current situation with China and how it should be handled, the best foreign affairs ministers he has worked with and his greatest challenge as a diplomat.