75 years ago, on 17 October 1949, Australia's Governor General Sir William McKell lit the first stick of dynamite for the Snowy Hyrdo scheme. 

After nine years of war between an American and Saudi-backed government and the Houthis backed by Iran, Yemen is a disaster zone with twenty million people facing starvation. Tawakkol Karman is a Yemini journalist and human rights advocate who led hundreds of protests against Yemen’s dictatorial regime and whose work was recognised with a Nobel Peace Prize. She says Yemen must have self-determination, free of foreign interference. Guest: Tawakkol Karman, journalist and human rights advocate.

Bill Gates, the boy-genius who dropped out of Harvard to start a technology company, became the world’s richest man and is now the world’s most prominent philanthropist. What kind of man is he and what influence does he hold?Guest: Anupreeta Das, author of Billionaire, Nerd, Saviour, King, The Hidden Truth about Bill Gates and his Power to Shape our World

Oxford theologian Nigel Biggar reckons with the history and legacy of the British Empire, in Australia and around the world.

As the US sends its Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Middle East envoy, Amos Hochstein, to try to gain a ceasefire agreement, it seems Israel has no intentions of stopping the bombing of Northern Gaza and Southern Lebanon. Journalist Antony Loewenstein says Israel has a strong motivation for an endless war – it’s one of the world’s biggest arms manufacturers and dealers. And he says for those companies selling military weapons, Gaza and the West Bank are their proof of concept.Guest: Antony Loewenstein, freelance journalist and author of: “The Palestine Laboratory, How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation around the World” published by Scribe.Antony is also host of The Palestine Laboratory podcast. 

With just two weeks to go until election day, presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have both returned to Pennsylvania - the most prized swing state of all. 

Why has every generation from biblical times onwards thought it would be the one to witness the end of the world? Dorian Lynskey explores how apocalyptic thought has evolved through the ages, looking at how our obsession with Armageddon has played out in fiction and film. Guest: Dorian Lynskey, author, journalist and podcasterHis new book is ‘Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell About The End of the World’ (Picador)

In June last Australia moved what was then the last refugee from offshore processing on Nauru. But since then Australia has been quietly sending people back, and they are struggling to put food in their mouths. The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre says the people there are reliant on charity to survive, where the cost of fruit and vegetables is around four times the average cost in Australia, and drinking water costs $70 per fortnight.  Guest: Jana Favero, Deputy CEO of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre.

Bernard Keane says the election of the first "teal" to the NSW state parliament shows the Liberal party has a lot of work to do to win these seats back at the federal level. Guest: Bernard Keane, political editor, Crikey

Learning how birds communicate could help us to better understand the health of our natural ecosystems. 

Journalist Gareth Gore investigates the finances and political influence of the conservative Catholic order, Opus Dei. 

In 2019 Scottish poet and feminist Jenny Lindsay spoke up on Twitter about a post that called for violence against women at a pride march in London. The tweet had been written by a trans activist and was directed at so-called “TERFS” (trans-exclusionary radical feminists). Lindsay says she, and other women who have raised questions about gender identity, have been hounded out of their jobs, and sometimes even out of their cities. But trans activists say their actions are causing harm to the trans community. Guest: Jenny Lindsay, poet and author of “Hounded. Women, Harms and the Gender Wars,” published by Polity. 

 Why the Russian Constitution matters for the world's democracies. 

A Macedonian-British food writer celebrates the foods from the region she was born in,  while also noting the misplaced nationalism attached to foods there - and everywhere.  Guest: Irina Janakievska, food writer

Since the Christchurch mosque terror attacks in 2019, conversion to Islam, especially among Maori, has skyrocketed. But Maori interest in Islam has been building for a few years. The Qur’an was translated into Te Reo Māori in 2008, the culmination of a long project.What connects Maori and Muslims, what's the attraction and what happens when Islam and Maori customs collide?  Guests: Ayca Arkilic – Senior Lecturer in Comparative Politics at Victoria University of Wellington. Current research with a project grant from Royal Society of NZ: Embracing Islam: Conversion, Identity, and Belonging in Aotearoa New Zealand  Noeleen van de Lisdonk – Co-founder of Ōu Mātou Reo (nation-wide network of Māori Muslims) and was a Kāpuia Ministerial Advisory Member to the Government’s Response to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Terrorist Attack on Christchurch Mosques

Columnist Ian Dunt on the King's imminent visit to Australia, and the Conservative Party's leadership race. 

High profile lawyer of Julian Assange, Jennifer Robinson, reflects on Assange's recent testimony to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. The Assembly criticised the role of both the US and the UK in Assange's imprisonment and called on member states to improve protections for whistleblowers and journalists. Robinson is also in Australia to discuss the release of the now uncensored and unredacted version of her book which discusses how defamation law is being used to silence women who speak out about sexual abuse and misconduct. Guest: Jennifer Robinson, barrister at Doughty Street Chambers in London and co-author of ‘How many more women - how the law silences women,’ with Dr Keina Yoshida, published by Allen and Unwin. 

Aside from the Obama years, the state of Florida has reliably voted for Republican presidential candidates this century, including for Donald Trump in 2020. How might recent hurricanes impact voter turnout in November? And will a vote on state abortion rights attract new voters to the polls? 

Taiwan is much more than the debate about whether it's a province of China. Its past is a colourful one, full of visitors and invaders from multiple cultures. And that creates a complex identity today. Guest: Jonathan Clements, author of 'Rebel Island: the incredible history of Taiwan' (Scribe) 

The Moulin Rouge was the heart of La Belle Époque in Paris, a place where eccentrics, artists and performers rubbed shoulders with aristocrats, socialites and working girls. In its 135 years it has survived multiple scandals, being burned to the ground and being occupied by Nazis and is now more popular than ever. But these days the spectacle is more Las Vegas than Paris, a polished performance for a conveyer belt of tourists from across the globe. So has the Paris icon lost its soul? Guest: Will Visconti, Italian lecturer at the School of International Studies at the University of Technology, Sydney. 

Australia has always thought of itself as a country that prides itself on its egalitarian nature – stories from how prisoners of war treated each other as equals and shared resources regardless of rank. But does this perception of egalitarianism hide a society that is spiralling into inequality? Guest: Andrew Leigh, Labor Member for Fenner in the ACT, Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities, Treasury and Employment and author of Battlers and Billionaires, published by Back Inc. 

King Charles is set to visit Australia for his first tour as Sovereign. The visit throws into light the role of the monarchy in Australia and its representative, the Governor-General. King Charles may say he's not involved in politics, but why is Buckingham Palace still refusing to release the so-called “Palace letters” about the dismissal of Gough Whitlam in 1975? Guest: Jenny Hocking, biographer, Emeritus Professor of History at Monash Uni and author of The Dismissal Dossier: Everything you were Never Meant to Know about November 1975 – the Palace Connection (2017).

The Australian government is hosting the world’s inaugural nature positive summit where it is hoped the world will take a big step towards agreeing on how we can not just halt the alarmingly rapid loss of nature, but actively restore it and improve it. The goal is to have nature in a visibly and measurably better state by 2030 with the introduction of "nature positive laws". But there are concerns the Nature Positive bill currently being debated in the Australian senate won't meet the promises we made as part of the international Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. Guests: Marco Lambertini, Convener, Nature Positive InitiativeRachel Walmsley, Head of Policy and Law Reform, Environmental Defenders Office

The "October surprises" keep coming, as another hurricane bears down on Florida. Meanwhile, Republican Liz Cheney has appeared alongside Democrat Kamala Harris on the campaign trail. Guest: Bruce Shapiro, contributing editor with The Nation magazine; Executive Director of the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia University

Just as Wikipedia replaced encyclopedias, it is feared that  AI will either replace, or weaken, Wikipedia’s content. Guest: writer Richard Cooke

Writer Sonia Purnell reveals the astonishing life of Pamela Churchill Harriman, one of the most significant women in 20th century politics. From Winston Churchill to Bill Clinton, Mandela, Sinatra and the Kennedys, her power and influence spanned generations and continents. 

Renowned around the world, the name Nobel is inextricably linked to the annual prizes. But who was the family behind the name?Guest: Bengt Jangfelt, author of The Nobel Family, Swedish Geniuses in Tsarist Russia

When India gained its independence, the rulers of the princely states - the Maharajas - had to be convinced to give up control of their territories to create the nation of India. It was a difficult negotiation for Lord Mountbatten as each prince wanted something different in return for giving up land, power and armies.Guest: John Zubrzycki, former diplomat and author of Dethroned: the downfall of India's princely states (Hurst/NewSouth)

Until the late 1980s Indigenous art was being ripped off left right and centre. It was open slather. First at the cheap end of the market on T-shirts and then on fancy carpets made in Vietnam. The rip-off merchants maintained black artists were just painting old patterns, so their work was for the taking. The lawyer who proved them wrong was Colin Golvan AM, and his new book shares historical stories of Indigenous copyright infringement and his experiences travelling around, often to remote communities, to work with artists to fight for their rights. Bronwyn Bancroft is one of Australia's most recognised First Nation artists and when she stumbled across the theft of her work, Colin took up the legal fight and they settled out of court. Bronwyn now mentors other Aboriginal artists to assert their copyright.Guests:Colin Golvan AM is a lawyer, QC and author of new book, Protecting Indigenous ArtBronwyn Bancroft AM is a Bundjalung woman, artist and author of 45 books

When drug baron Pablo Escobar was killed in 1993, his hacienda near Medellin was ransacked for cash, drugs and money. Left behind though were some of the animals from his private zoo, including four hippos. They have multiplied since then and are now spreading down the Magdalena River. While there have been no deaths so far, it is only a matter of time.Guest: Joshua Hammer, contributing writer with the Smithsonian Magazine. 

Jacob Heilbrunn, says Donald Trumps' admiration of so-called 'strong-man' leaders like Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orban reflects a long history of US conservatives' admiration for foreign dictators. Guest: Jacob Heilbrunn, Columnist, The Atlantic, and author of the upcoming book America Last: The Right’s Century-Long Romance With Foreign Dictators.

The new President of Sri Lanka is not from one of the elites that have dominated party politics since independence, but rather from the left. The far-left according to some. How will Anura Kumara Dissanayake bring the country together to deal with the economic and political challenges facing Sri Lanka.Guest: Vidhura S Tennekoon - Assistant Professor of Economics at the Indiana University, Indianapolis

The largest known population of the Australian night parrot was recently discovered in the Great Sandy Desert in WA. Ornithologist Dr Penny Olsen recounts our long fascination with this elusive nocturnal bird. Guest:  Dr Penny Olsen, ornithologist and Honorary Professor at ANU

Successive prime ministers have tried and failed to progress religious discrimination reforms in Australia. Section 38 of the Sex Discrimination Act remains a sticking point - an existing exemption in the law which permits religious schools to discriminate against staff and students based on their sexuality and gender identity. The Australian Law Reform Commission has recommended its repeal - a proposition many religious leaders do not support.

Joe Biden won the US state of Georgia in 2020 by the slimmest of margins, and the 2024 race between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris will be close again. Shifting demographics may prove decisive, but for now, the state's most urgent priority is its response to the deadly Hurricane Helene. 

The world’s richest men – Elon Musk, Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos - might still be trying to outdo each other in space travel. But do the rest of us care anymore? Guest: Jonn Elledge, columnist with The New Statesman and The Guardian.

Israel has killed the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, in a targeted bombing attack on Beirut. Many of Hezbollah's weapons caches have also been destroyed. An estimated 1000 people have been killed over the past two weeks and up to one million people may be internally displaced across Lebanon. Will this coordinated attack finally mean the end of Hezbollah?

Guest: Laura Tingle, Chief Political Correspondent, 7.30

With changing the name of Australia's highest peak still undecided, Mount Kosciuszko remains named after a Polish revolutionary.Who was this man, and why was he so revered - not only in his native Poland, but across continents?GUEST: Anthony Sharwood, author of  ‘Kosciuszko, The Incredible Life of the Man behind the Mountain’.To hear our earlier interview on renaming Mount Kosciuszko click here.

As the US election looms, Donald Trump is pushing his message around stopping what he calls the "migration invasion" of America across the Mexican border. In the Arizona desert, robot dogs, mobile surveillance towers and drones with tasers already make the crossing a living nightmare. Now artificial intelligence is being combined with the collection of people's photographs and biometric data to make what lawyers and human rights experts say are arbitrary and often unchallengeable decisions about a person's right to asylum. Meanwhile a small number of private companies are making a large profit from the sale and use of these systems to governments in America and around the world. Guest: Petra Molnar, author “The Walls Have Eyes: Surviving Migration in the Age of Artificial Intelligence,” published by The New Press, and Associate Director, Refugee Law Lab, York University, Toronto. 

Veteran Irish journalist Fintan O'Toole asks why democratic systems and values that had been taken for granted are now in such peril.

Keir Starmer has laid out his hopes for Britain in his first speech to the Labor Party Conference since his election in July this year. He promised 'national renewal' and 'a Britain that belongs to you'. He also warned that sacrifices would have to be made in order to make the changes that they believe are critical for the future of Britain. Did he make a convincing case?Guest: Ian Dunt, columnist with the "I" and co-host of the Origin Story podcast.

‘To do a Houdini’ is still used to describe remarkable feats of escapes, yet the great escapologist Harry Houdini was born 150 years ago.In 1910, Houdini visited Australia for a 3 month sell-out tour. He also claimed the title of the first person to successfully fly a powered aircraft in Australia.GUEST: Leann Richards, author of 'Houdini's Tour of Australia'.

A 27-year old man who wore a protest T-shirt has become the first person convicted and sentenced under Hong Kong's new national security laws, passed in March this year. Journalists have also been charged with sedition. Meanwhile, pressure mounts on Australian judges serving in Hong Kong to resign their posts. 

In an extremely close US election race, getting people to the polls - either on November 5th or via early voting - will prove the difference. The ground game is less about ideology and more about campaign strategy and party machinery. So how are the Democrats and Republicans tackling this challenge in the key swing states? 

Have we been underestimating plants? A controversial field of science champions the sentience and intelligence of plants. Acclaimed New Yorker journalist Elizabeth Kolbert has been looking at some recent books on this topic for the October edition of the New York Review of Books. 

Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced that he was stepping down and there are nine candidates now running for the leadership position of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party. The leader of the party will automatically become the next Prime Minister of Japan. Commentator on Japan Roger Pulvers explains how the election will play out. Guest: Roger Pulvers, author, playwright and commentator on Japan

Peter Dutton has given a speech to the Committee for Economic Development Australia to push his nuclear policy, saying nowhere in the world has a renewables-only policy worked. And is the Greens focus on housing a populist move? Guest: Karen Middleton, political editor, Guardian Australia

After WWII, the CIA undertook experiments with psychedelic compounds like LSD, in the hope of discovering pharmacological weapons. The holy grail was a "truth serum" that might be used to extract secrets from the enemy. But the CIA wasn't the first to meddle with psychedelics in this way - in fact these experiments were first initiated in Nazi Germany. 

Despite numerous reviews, investigations and now a Royal Commission, the culture of abuse in the military remains resistant to change. It is not just physical and sexual abuse, but also administrative abuse which results in members and veterans of the Australian Defence Force suffering lifelong trauma which in many cases leads to suicide. What needs to happen for the culture of the military to change?Guests: Ben Wadham, professor in Sociology in Defence and Veteran Studies at Flinders University in South Australia and James Connor, Associate Professor in military sociology at the University of NSW in CanberraCo-authors of Warrior, Soldier, Brigand: Institutional Abuse within the Australian Defence Force (Melbourne University Press)

North America is the land of the car - but it hasn't always been this way. Many cities were once home to large public transport systems, or came close to building them. What happened? And could these networks ever return?

The Federal Government's revised hydrogen strategy prioritises the development of ‘green hydrogen’, but there are still some unclear areas, says Alison Reeve, who helped lead the original Hydrogen Strategy in 2019. 

Wisconsin had been democratic since 1988. And then Donald Trump beat Hilary Clinton by just 0.7 per cent in 2016. Four years later Biden beat Trump by 20,000 votes or just 0.6 per cent. The mid-western state has a history of division. It’s divided fairly evenly into Democrat and Republican supporters, leaving a narrow margin of swing voters for the candidates to court.  But it’s also about motivating supporters to actually vote – a lot will come down to turn-out on the day. In 2020 turn-out in Wisconsin was up by 11 per cent and most of that was Democrat. Both Trump and Harris are frequent visitors to Wisconsin and that’s ramping up.  The economy is the big item as inflation has sent house prices and groceries skyrocketing.  Guest:Jonathan Kasparek - professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

The world drank coffee before it drank tea. 'The world' here meaning the Middle East, Russia and Europe. One battlefront in this great transition was Iran. And this commercial battle was waged ferociously from the 18th into the 19th centuries. Opium has a key role in this story. So does the Samovar.  And so does politics. Coffee houses from London to Tehran made governments uneasy – citizens met and talked and plotted there – but tea houses frightened governments even more. The story of the history of tea in Iran is tied up in geopolitics and trade relationships between Iran, Russia and China and Britain.Guest:Rudi Matthee - John and Dorothy Munroe Distinguished Professor of History at the University of DelawareBooks: The Pursuit of Pleasure: Drugs and Stimulants in Iranian History, 1500-1900; The Politics of Trade in Safavid Iran: Silk for Silver, 1600-1730; Persia in Crisis: The Decline of the Safavids and the Fall of Isfahan; and most recently, Angels Tapping at the Wine-shop's Door: A history of Alcohol in the Islamic World

A report by the Australian Public Service Commission has found twelve public servants, including two former departmental secretaries, Kathryn Campbell and Renée Leon, breached the Public Service Code of Conduct in their handling of Robodebt. Commissioner Dr Gordon de Brouwer said the inquiry confirmed "a sad and shameful succession of public servants failing to demonstrate the behaviour expected of public service."Guest:  Rick Morton, journalist, The Saturday Paper.

Hopeful prospectors have been mining for opals in the Australian outback for well over a century, but a regulatory review in New South Wales has some concerned about the future. 

On September 16, 2022, Mahsa Amini was arrested in Tehran and beaten to death by Iran’s morality police for not wearing her hijab correctly. Her killing caused outrage around the world and inside Iran the “Women. Life. Freedom.”  movement erupted in a way which had no precedent in the Muslim world. It was wholly led by women, supported by men, and was a clear repudiation of Islamic rule in the theocratic state.  Guest: Farhad Khosrokhavar, retired professor at the Higher School of Social Studies in Paris and author of ‘Revolt Against Theocracy: The Mahsa Movement and the Feminist Uprising in Iran,’ published by Polity. 

Political analyst Niki Savva has just handed down the 2024 Milton Dick Speaker’s lecture. Called Survival in the age of mistrust, challenges for politicians and journalists, it’s an exploration of how trust in politics is being eroded by culture wars, and how the battlelines are being set as we head towards another federal election. In a dire warning, she says if both major political parties don't change tactics, they might both fracture their respective parties. Guest: Niki Savva, author and columnist with the Age and the Sydney Morning Herald. 

In 1831 British colonists offered the Tasmanian Aboriginal people protection and freedom if they agreed to temporarily go to a place they called Wybalenna on Flinders Island in Bass Strait. That promise was never kept and most perished, lying today in unmarked graves. Now a project is underway to tell the stories of the people who strived to maintain their culture in that isolated place. It’s a crucial part of a truth-telling process that Aboriginal people hope will culminate in a treaty, nearly two hundred years later. Guests: Rebecca Digney, Manager, Aboriginal Land Council of TasmaniaGreg Lehman, Professorial Fellow, Indigenous Research and UNESCO Chair on Communication, Environment and Heritage at the University of Tasmania. 

As Rupert Murdoch battles to keep his empire in the hands of his favoured son Lachlan, the world watches this powerful media dynasty struggle with succession plans. But the Murdochs are just the latest media dynasty who have struggled to keep their empire in the family. Eric Beecher has first hand experience of working for the Murdochs, but now has his own mini-empire Private Media which owns several news websites including Crikey.Guest: Eric Beecher, Chair Private Media and author of The Men Who Killed the News (Simon and Schuster)

In 1870, Paris was surrounded by German troops, cut off from the world, and a bitter, ugly place of chaos. It's known as 'The Terrible Year', and the 'Siege of Paris'. Out of this arose the Impressionists, whose paintings shone with light and beauty. Guest: Sebastian Smee, art critic at The Washington Post and author of ‘Paris in Ruins: Love, war and the birth of Impressionism’ (Text Publishing) 

Bruce Shapiro - contributing editor with The Nation magazine - on who "won" the Trump Harris presidential debate, and whether it will make a difference at the ballot box come November. 

The great Janet Frame was born a century ago – a rare talent, a unique literary force. Writing saved her, she became a great figure in New Zealand and beyond but it was a film that made Frame famous - Jane Campion’s 1990 An Angel at My Table, based on Frame's autobiography.In the 1970s Janet Frame dropped off some of her literary drafts and a sealed suitcase of papers for safekeeping to the University of Otago in New Zealand. That was the start of a collection that's now expanded and been turned into a special exhibition to mark the writer’s centenary. Guests: Anna Blackman - Head Curator Archives at the Hocken Collection, University of Otago Kirstie Ross - Head curator published and special collections at the Hocken Collection, University of Otago Library. 

We assess what’s happening on the battlefield and the prospects of diplomatic efforts to reach a peace deal.Guest: Anatol Lieven, Director of the Eurasia Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible StatecraftCopy caption here

The report into the Grenfell fire that took 72 lives in 2017 has been released and the deregulation under former Prime Minister Cameron was a major contributing factor. Meanwhile, the Conservatives have their new leader short list. Ian Dunt, columnist with the I newspaper and co-host of the Origin Story podcast.

Is portrait painting a political act? 

In December 2023, the first cardinal ever to face a criminal trial in the Vatican was convicted of embezzlement and sentenced to a hefty term in prison. Nine other officials were found guilty of a smorgasbord of financial crimes after investigations revealed infighting, intrigue and theft on an enormous scale. But no one is yet behind bars. 

The economy is slowing, which should, in theory, take pressure off interest rates, but all indicators still point to little relief for those struggling with the cost of living. So how will the government shape the economic debate in the lead-up to the next election, and what is the opposition's game-plan? Guest: Laura Tingle, Chief Political Correspondent, 7.30 

Alfred Dreyfus was an officer in the French Army when he was arrested 130 years ago for treason, convicted and sent to Devils Island for 5 years in solitary confinement.  His battle for justice divided the population of France and fascinated people across the globe.  How much of his persecution can be put down to antisemitism and why is this case still so relevant?Guest: Maurice Samuels, author of Alfred Dreyfus: The man at the centre of the affair (Yale University Press)

Early last century, America was little known by Australians, but it offered restless, aspirational women an alternative to the well worn path to England.It was more free, and more bold. Guest: historian Yves Rees

Israel has erupted in protests following the execution of six more of the hostages taken by Hamas on October 7, 2023. The US is urgently trying to come up with a ceasefire plan, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is making no sign of changing course. While the protests indicate a clear dissatisfaction with the Israeli leader over his handling of the hostage situation, they don’t necessarily mean there is less support for the war on Gaza. Dr Dahlia Scheindlin - public opinion researcher and political scientist. Author of “The Crooked Timber of Democracy in Israel: Promise Unfulfilled”, published by De Gruyter.

For more than 1000 years, India was a trading powerhouse across the globe - not only of spices, wild animals and gemstones but also of language, philosophy, religion, mathematics and astronomy. But why is this part of India's history not so well known, and why did its dominance wane about 1200 AD.Guest: William Dalrymple, historian, podcaster and author of The Golden Road How Ancient India Transformed the World (Bloomsbury)

Sadly former ABC broadcaster Tim Bowden has died aged 87. Tim Bowden enjoyed an impressive career in broadcasting, from This Day Tonight to radio documentaries and hosting BackChat. Tim also has 14 books to his name, and he spoke to Phillip Adams about his life and work back in 2013.

Is eradicating the fire ant in Australia still possible? 

The military coup in Myanmar that ousted Aung San Suu Kyi a few years ago remains a work in progress. The army has never controlled the whole country, as local militia fight to seize territory from the regime. The most fierce of these little wars at the moment is being fought by the Arakan Army in the coastal Rakhine State. It's primarily Buddhist in the south and Rohingya Muslim in the north, where it borders Bangladesh.Guest:Thomas Kean - consultant on Myanmar and Bangladesh at the International Crisis Group. He’s also edited Myanmar newspapers since 2008. 

This week, the Labor government decided that putting in questions about people's sexuality and gender was too hard, only to reverse that decision later in the week. Why is the government finding these decisions on culture issues so difficult?Laura Tingle, Chief Political Correspondent, 7.30

There has been a long and complex conversation about the name of our highest mountain. Named after a Polish noble in 1843, the move towards a meaningful and accurate Indigenous name, to replace or co-exist alongside, continues. GUESTS: Richard Swain High Country, river guide, Assoc Professor, Fenner School ANU, and Dr Harold Koch specialist in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages, and co-editor of "Aboriginal placenames : naming and re-naming the Australian landscape" 2009 ANU Press

A landmark Senate inquiry into missing and murdered First Nations women found there has been little, if any, justice for those women and their loved ones, and in too many instances, the suspected perpetrator has never been held to account.  Now, fed up with the slow wheels of government, a group of over seventy specialist domestic, family, and sexual violence organisations has formed a new national grassroots network with a mission to reducing all forms of violence. Guests: Kerry Staines - CEO, First Nations Advocates Against Family ViolenceThelma Schwartz – Principal Legal Officer with the Queensland Indigenous Family Violence ServiceDr Hannah McGlade - Associate Professor, Curtin Law School and expert in Indigenous rights to the UN Permanent Forum for Indigenous Peoples

A rookie farmer, who happens to be a neuroscientist who has specialised in studying dogs, gets a few cows to eat the grass down. He learns about their lives and personalities, and soon considers them friends. Guest Gregory Berns

Managing charitable trusts in Australia has become big business. 

It’s been labelled the most consequential act of sabotage in modern times, and one of the most destructive environmental catastrophes the world has seen. The 2022 attack on the Nord Stream pipeline cut Germany’s reliance on gas from Russia. So who stood to gain from this and why has the mystery not been fully solved yet? This has been treated like a proper detective story in Germany. And top investigative reporters from across German media have teamed up to investigate. The journalists have uncovered many  of the puzzle pieces, such as the direct involvement of Ukraine and Poland. Guest: Jorg Schmitt is an investigative journalist at German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung.

Simon Armitage was a sleepy ten-year old kid in West Yorkshire when he was awakened by poetry.

What role is the Arab American vote playing in the US Presidential election so far, particularly in the swing state of Michigan? There’s been strong discontent over the US funding Israel’s war on Gaza. Now Vice President and Presidential candidate Kamala Harris is beginning to court the Arab American voters in Michigan. How much influence will they have over US foreign policy? And what’s the history behind the city of Dearborn’s predominantly Arab American population? Guest: Sally Howell - Professor of History and Arab American Studies at the University of Michigan-Dearborn

It seems that people either love or hate the humble anchovy. But ut has been flavouring our food for millenia although in many different forms - from the Roman sauce 'garum' to various pastes and preserved forms to the centrepiece of a pizza, tapas or caesar salad. Guest: Christopher Beckman, author of A Twist in the Tail – How the Humble Anchovy Flavoured Western Cuisine published by Hurst

Prime Minister of Malaysia, Anwar Ibrahim, is now radically changing his international strategy and foreign policy by applying to join the BRICS group of non-aligned nations.

While the opposition has been trying to keep the focus on Gaza the government has pushed a number of key bills through the Senate -  on aged care, changes to the NDIS and putting the CFMEU into administration.  Guest: Laura Tingle, Chief Political Correspondent, 7.30

Islands are the location of two extremes: they hold the greatest concentration on earth of both biodiversity and species extinctions.  The challenge to save them and their inhabitants from the triple threat threat of invasive species, sea level rises and global heating  seems immense, But the results when rescue teams are sent in are remarkably quick - a gecko thought be extinct reappears. Giant tortoises thriving in the wild once again. Now the not-for-profit organisation Island Conservation is running a challenge to begin restoring at least 40 globally significant island-ocean ecosystems by 2030.Guest: Cameron Diver, Vice-President, Island Conservation. 

Political philosopher David Runciman sits down with David Marr to discuss why democracy is in such a state of disrepair, and the scintillating idea he has to give our tired old systems a jolt of adrenaline.  

Since the war in Gaza broke out there has been a crisis of censorship in the arts sector around the world, in what the not-for-profit group Freemuse is calling a most alarming moment for freedom of expression. Here in Australia pianist Jayson Gillham had his concerts cancelled after speaking about the killing of journalists in Gaza, and arts organisations have lost millions in funding from donors. So what rights do artists have to express political views? And what should the consequences be? Guests: Louise Adler, Director, Adelaide Writers’ Week.Pianist, Jayson Gillham.Actor, Violette Ayad.Sverre Pederson, Executive Director, Freemuse, a not-for-profit group which produced the State of Artistic Freedom 2024 ReportLouise and Violette will be speaking at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas in Sydney on the topic is 'Art is Always Political'. 

80 years ago, an exciting new poet by the name of Ern Malley burst onto the Australian literary scene. As it turned out, Ern was a hoax, concocted by two conservative poets intent on humiliating the country’s literary avante garde. 

In Sudan nearly 26 million people are facing starvation and more than 11 million people have been internally displaced in a war which has seen atrocities committed by both sides. A report from Amnesty International shows hundreds of thousands of weapons are being brought into Sudan from countries including China, Russia, Serbia, Türkiye, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Yemen, in violation of a UN arms embargo in Darfur. But who is backing which side, and why? Guests: Abdullahi Hassan, Researcher, Conflict – Somalia and Sudan, Amnesty InternationalLeila Molana-Allen, Special Correspondent, PBS Newshour

Joe Biden has made a passionate speech at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in support of Kamala Harris and their agenda. There was a lot of love in the room for Joe Biden, but will his final legacy be handing over the nomination to Kamala Harris?Guest: Bruce Shapiro, contributing editor with the Nation Magazine and Director of the Dart Centre for Journalism at Columbia University

Crumbling but charming village houses for sale for one euro. Free accommodation for digital nomads. Shepherd training for foreigners. These are just some of the ways Italy's regions are trying to replenish their populations. James Imam reports on where it's working.

The Voice Referendum began as a conservative project. Its ultimate failure was due to lies, betrayals and mistakes, according to lawyer Shireen Morris, who worked on the proposal for many years.

The Albanese Government's progress on its legislative agenda has slowed to a snail's pace since Parliament returned. But what has now escalated is Labor's political return of fire to the very political attack by Peter Dutton over visas granted to people fleeing to Gaza. Guest: Laura Tingle, Chief Political Correspondent 7.30

Author Henry Savery is credited with being Australia's first novelist, for his work 'Quintus Servinton', but author and historian Sean Doyle says in fact the first Autralian-born novelist was John Lang. Lang was born in a Parramatta pub in 1816 and his 1836 novel called 'Violet; Or, the Danseuse: A Portraiture of Human Passion and Character' was published anonymously in London. It was quite a feat for a twenty-year old. Lang went on to write twenty novels, a number of serials, a travelogue of India and to run a newspaper that would eventually hire a young Rudyard Kipling.  Now his extraordinary life has been chronicled in a new biography. Guest: Sean Doyle, author of ‘Australia’s trail-blazing first novelist  - John Lang”, published by Big Sky publishing.

Cuba is still on the State Sponsors of Terrorism list. Are the reasons for Cuba remaining on this list mostly political and what is the effect of the US sanctions on their economy?Guest: Jason Blazakis, Director of the Center on Terrorism, Extremism and Counterterrorism at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies

It is 200 years since a pivotal, but not well known, moment in Australian colonial history - when NSW Governor Thomas Brisbane proclaimed martial law against the Wiradjuri people of the Bathurst region.Guests: Yanhadarrambul Uncle Jade Flynn,  Public officer for the Wiradyuri Traditional Owners Central West Aboriginal Corporation Stephen Gapps, Historian who has written two books on the frontier wars – ‘The Sydney Wars’, and ‘Gudyarra: The first Wiradyuri war of resistance’ (Both from NewSouth) 

Author and cultural critic Roxane Gay and David Marr reflect on dissent, the role of hope and anger, the importance and the consequences of speaking up, and why despair is a luxury. Guest: Roxane Gay, writer, cultural critic and the Gloria Steinem Endowed Chair in Media, Culture and Feminist Studies at Rutgers University - New Brunswick. Roxane Gay is speaking at Now or Never in Melbourne on Tues 27 August 2024, and at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas in Sydney on Sat 24 August 2024, on the topic “How to Have Dangerous Ideas”. 

Just when it looked like justice might be served for three of the men behind 9/11, Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin intervened. So where does that leave the effort to close Guantánamo Bay?Guest: Carol Rosenberg, senior journalist at The New York Times where she covers the wartime prison and court at Guantánamo Bay. 

There have been more than 100 Palestinian journalists killed over the last ten months of the war in Gaza making it very difficult for the journalists left to get stories of the war reported in the international media. All media outlets in Israel must submit their reporting on security matters to the military censor. But is this the reason there is limited reporting of the casualty count in Gaza, or are there other considerations at play?Guest: Haggai Matar, executive director of +972 Magazine

When the Governor of Minnesota Tim Walz called Donald Trump weird, it caught on. Suddenly everyone was calling him weird. But what does weird mean in 2024, because over the centuries of its use, its meaning has changed several times. Guest: Michael Adams, Professor of English, Indiana University Bloomington

Ancient First Nations languages are being re-learnt and adapted for current times. A new book captures some of the variety, and significance, of the varied language landscape of the Australian continent. With Felicity Meakins and Gari Tudor-Smith

New documents signed as part of the $368 billion AUKUS treaty have been tabled in parliament which show Australia agreed to indemnify the UK and the US against costs or damage arising from nuclear safety risks. The documents also reveal exit clauses which would allow both the US and UK to withdraw from the deal with little notice and no compensation.  Guest: Laura Tingle, Chief Political Correspondent, 7.30

The small Central American country of Guatemala has the dubious record of sending nearly as many babies and children overseas as China was. The whole adoption 'industry' was privatised, with little government oversight.

New Zealand's coalition government are in the midst of rolling back Māori rights, including the relatively established use of Te Reo Maori language in the public sector. There are also serious moves to change the way the Treaty of Waitangi is applied in law and policy, by overhauling the guiding principles. The rhetoric is divisive but it’s sparking protests, court cases and galvanising Māori to unite and push back. Guests: Carwyn Jones - Honorary adjunct Professor at the School of Māori Studies at Victoria University in WellingtonAnnette Sykes – Principle of her own law firm that specalises in Waitangi Tribunal cases

History is always subjective but in Australia we have a history of not just sanitising the past and its characters but censoring or at least covering up. However, we can right the wrongs of the past and one significant project to do this is underway at the Australian National University, to revise the National Dictionary of Biography, especially the role of Indigenous people and women in Australia. But decolonising twenty heavy tomes, nine million words, and almost 14,000 biographies can’t be done overnight.Guest: Melanie Nolan - General Editor, Australian Dictionary of Biography 

It's like an episode of Succession - Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch are siding against the remaining Murdoch children in an epic family battle to determine who will control the empire after Rupert's death. And a Nevada probate court will decide the outcome, which all revolves around an irrevocable trust.  Guest: Naomi R. Cahn – Professor of law at the University of Virginia & an expert in family law, trusts and estates; co-authored an article in The Conversation with Reid Kress Weisbord: Rupert Murdoch’s real succession drama − why the future of his media empire could hinge on a legal effort in Nevada

Kamala Harris has chosen her running mate in the race for the Whitehouse. Tim Walz is the Governor of Minnesota, a former geography teacher and football coach as well as a hunter and former National Guard. Has he got the capacity to pull the centre to the left?Guest: Bruce Shapiro, contributing editor with the Nation Magazine and Director of the Dart Centre for Journalism at Columbia University

The US military just released a report revealing soldiers who regularly work with blasts have the highest suicide rates.The brain damage sustained is devastating and completely different to PTSD or CTE, sustained during football injuries. Defense Department studies suggest most blast exposure happens in training, not combat operations. Bomb disposal experts and those who train and work regularly around large blasts were most affected, with 34 deaths per 100,000, compared to less than half that rate for civilians. Dave Phillips, reporter with the New York Times who writes about war, the military and veterans, and covers The Pentagon. 

Much of the media have described marches led by far-right activists in the UK which led to out of control riots and looting as 'anti-immigration protests', but Ian Dunt says the term 'anti-immigration' is woefully insufficient. He says what occurred was not a demonstration, not just a riot and more than just violent disorder. What occurred was a pogrom - an attempt to attack and in some cases murder people, targeting  those with black and brown skin.  Guest: Ian Dunt, columnist, the I newspaper. 

Sugar plantations accounted for two thirds of all enslaved workers. But the origins of sugar are not in the Caribbean or Brazil or Cuba. They are in India and China - without slaves. Guest: Ulbe Bosma

WA Senator Linda Reynolds gave evidence today in her defamation case against former employee, Brittany Higgins. So what is there to gain from this case? And would an awarding of damages against Higgins remedy the distress she says she has suffered? Guest: Richard Ackland, publisher and editor of the law journals, Justinian and the Gazette of Law & Journalism. 

At the Garma festival on the weekend Prime Minister Anthony Albanese failed to commit to a Makarrata Commission, as requested by Aboriginal people in the Uluru statement to heart. The move seemed to deny Opposition Leader Peter Dutton a key point of attack, but where does it leave the truth-telling process, and the government's relationship with first nations people in Australia?  Guest: Laura Tingle, Chief Political Correspondent, 7.30

What is the soul? Is it a substance, your conscience or simply a creation of the mind? Most societies and religions have some concept of the soul. Historian Paul Ham has looked at how the idea has changed through history and across cultures. Guest: Paul Ham, author of The Soul: A History of the Human Mind (Penguin Random House)

100 years since his birth, the novelist and essayist James Baldwin's writings on politics, Black America and sexuality remain pertinent to today's world. With poet and scholar Paul Kane

When the federal government released its gas strategy in May 2024, it said LNG – liquefied natural gas – would remain a key export market for Australia, with plans to expand the amount of gas Australia sells overseas. That was despite expert advice from the Grattan Institute that Australia will not hit its 2050 net-zero emissions target unless it transitions quickly away from the methane-producing fossil fuel. Author Royce Kurmelovs argues that this decision is just one of a long history of wins for the oil and gas sector, which his new books shows had detailed knowledge of the impact of fossil fuels on the climate, well before the industry got off the ground in Australia. Guest: Royce Kurmelovs, journalist and author of ‘Slick - Australia’s toxic relationship with Big Oil’, published by UQP. 

Thousands have Venezuelans have taken to the streets in violent protests after the current President Nicolas Maduro announced he had won the election. All the polls prior and informal counting on the day indicated that the opposition had won the election. Could internal and international pressure combine to force him out?Guest: Alejandro Velasco, Associate Professor in Latin American History at New York University

The very lucrative practise of lobbying has seen corporate profits soar and transformed America's economy and the political process itself. A glaring example of lobbyist's power must be the failure of President Clinton to win passage of much anticipated health care reform during the 1990s.Once a business using personal connections and access to lawmakers in Washington, lobbyists now focus on shaping the opinion of constituents back home in their districts, cozying up to PR gurus, social media experts, pollsters, and grassroots organisers to further the interests of big US Corporations, and reshaping how both major political parties operate.  Guest: Brody Mullins, author of The Wolves of K Street: The Secret History of How Big Money Took Over Big Government (Simon and Schuster)

A new book suggests that Captain James Cook, while previously known as a man with a distinct knowledge of and respect for Indigenous peoples and with his crew, on his last voyage, misjudged and miscommunicated his way to his death at the hands of once friendly Hawaiians.GUEST: author and historian Hampton SidesBook: The Wide Wide Sea - Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook. (Random House)

A new book suggests that Captain James Cook, while previously known as a man with a distinct knowledge of and respect for Indigenous peoples and with his crew, on his last voyage, misjudged and miscommunicated his way to his death at the hands of once friendly Hawaiians.GUEST: author and historian Hampton SidesBook: The Wide Wide Sea - Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook. (Random House)

Is a butcher allowed to make Olympic rings out of sausages? Was the champion Spartan chariot racer Kyniska the feminist trailblazer she is held up to be? Internationally acclaimed sports historian Wray Vamplew puts the spotlight on the myths and misconceptions about the Olympics past and present.Guest: Wray Vamplew, Emeritus professor of Sports History at the University of Stirling and author of ‘Games people played: a global history of sport’ (Reaktion Books, 2022, paperback 2023) 

Renowned war correspondent Robert Fisk was a strong critic of the West’s interference in the Middle East, but he was equally critical of the Western media and the way in which it reported those events. Now his final work has been published by his widow, Nelofer Pazira-Fisk, which she says is a warning about ongoing war. Guest: Nelofer Pazira-Fisk, journalist, documentary filmmaker and widow of Robert Fisk. 'Night of Power - the betrayal of the Middle East’ is published by  Harper Collins Australia.  

Clare O'Neil and Andrew Giles have been moved from the home affairs and immigration portfolios in Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's first major Cabinet re-shuffle. But questions remain about the whether the unwieldy portfolio itself should be broken up. Guest: Laura Tingle, Chief Political Correspondent, 7.30

Popularised by accountants in Renaissance Florence, the paper notebook has a rich cultural history. Prolific notebook users include master doodler Leonardo da Vinci, Charles Darwin, Agatha Christie and Bruce Chatwin who unwittingly inspired the Moleskine.  Guest: Roland Allen, authorRoland’s new book is ‘The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper’ (Profile Books)

Frustrated academics are finding new models for publishing academic research that bypasses the big academic publishers who are making millions from their research. And it is the universities that are paying for it - usually twice.Guest: Arash Abizadeh, professor of political science at McGill University and author of the article in the Guardian titled: Academic journals are a lucrative scam and we're determined to change that

A new documentary looks at the important career of military analyst Des Ball who kept Australia informed for over 50 years about the changing role of the US military and intelligence facility at Pine Gap.Guests:John Hughes, director of the documentary Twilight Time: Des Ball the man who saved the world which is appearing at the Melbourne International Film FestivalRichard Tanter: Senior Research Associate, Nautilus Institute and former President of the Australian board of the International Campaign for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) 

A new biography of William Shakespeare looks at the world’s greatest playwright through a queer lens. According to author Will Tosh, “Same-sex desire was particularly evident in Shakespeare’s sonnets and the Elizabethan society he moved in as a young man was much queerer than you might think."Guest: Will Tosh, Head of Research at Shakespeare’s Globe, LondonWill is the author of ‘Straight Acting: The Many Queer Lives of William Shakespeare’ (Sceptre)

Saree Makdisi argues Israel has long presented itself as a bastion of tolerance and democracy in the heart of the Middle East. But he says the war in Gaza is seeing support among progressive voters, particularly in the United States, collapse, and that the Netanyahu regime is lifting the veil of denial over a story of cultural and ethnic dispossession. Guest: Saree Makdisi, professor of English and Comparative Literature at UCLA. His most recent book is ‘Tolerance is a Wasteland: Palestine and the Culture of Denial’, published by University of California press. Saree Makdisi will be appearing at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas in Sydney.

A month-long walk from the source of the Brisbane River, eastward to Moreton Bay, leads writer and barrister Simon Cleary to new appreciations of what the river means to people,  and how it changes along its course. Guest: Simon Cleary, author of ‘Everything is water’, a non-fiction account of walking the length of the Brisbane River. Published by UQP

There have been many scary stories about what could happen if artificial intelligence is allowed free rein, including ultimately the destruction of the human race,  but theoretical physicist Paul Davies says there's much to be welcomed about developments in AI, including significant improvements in cancer diagnosis and treatment, and improvements to important brain functions such as memory.  Guest: Paul Davies, Regents’ Professor of Physics, and Director of the Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science at Arizona State University. He is the author of 33 books, including 'What's Eating the Universe? And Other Cosmic Questions.’ 

President Biden has pulled out of the race for the Presidency and put his support and his donations behind Kamala Harris. But has he left it too late?Guest: Bruce Shapiro, contributing editor with The Nation magazine; Executive Director of the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia University.   

Antoni Gaudi, already known as ‘God’s architect’, could soon be beatified by Pope Francis, making him the patron saint of architects. In a new biography, Michael Eaude says the Catalan architect did not always display saintly behaviour. According to Eaude, Gaudi was more of a bad-tempered genius with a wry sense of humour. Guest: Michael Eaude, journalist and authorMichael’s new book is ‘Antoni Gaudi’ (Reaktion Books)

Should politicians be claiming defamation for comments made on social media? Senator Linda Reynolds will be in the WA Supreme Court next week making her case that Brittany Higgins defamed her on Twitter and Instagram.Guest: Richard Ackland, editor of Justinian and the newsletter 500 words or thereabouts

Laura Tingle on how the Opposition is re-jigging its strategy to focus on outer-suburban, regional and rural electorates, and how the CFMEU issue plays nicely into their hands. Guest: Laura Tingle, Chief Political Correspondent, 7.30

The passport - if you can get one - gives freedom, but it also means state surveillance. This is one of the many passport paradoxes observed by author Patrick Bixby, in an account that ranges from indigenous passports to literary references to passport 'rankings'. Guest: Patrick Bixby, Professor of English at Arizona State UniversityAuthor of ‘License to Travel: A Cultural History of th Passport’ (University of California Press)

Iran’s new president Masoud Pezeshkian is touted as being a reformist, with a more conciliatory approach to a broad range of issues, from the women’s movement, to nuclear co-operation and relations with Western countries. But ultimately the country is still ruled by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini and the ultraconservative Guardian Council. So how much difference can he really make? And what role will Iran still play in supporting Hezbollah and other militias in a proxy war with Israel? Guest: Vali Nasr, professor of international affairs and Middle East studies at John Hopkins University.

A war historian accompanies a group on a pilgrimage to the Indonesian island of Ambon, where hundreds of Australian soldiers died in WWll. Joan Beaumont ponders the meaning of memory, and connection to past war traumas. Guest: Joan Beaumont, Emerita Professor in the ANU's Strategic and Defence Studies Centre. Author of 'I never knew my uncle', an article in the July edition of Australian Book Review

All eyes are on France with only a week or so to go before the Olympics. But the greatest spectator sport to watch in the country right now is politics. The fall-out from President Macron’s shock decision to call a snap election last month has left France without a government and Macron himself seriously weakened at home and abroad.Guest: Rachel Donadio, contributing writer for The Atlantic  

In the early years of AIDS,  men and women with the HIV virus were widely seen as untouchables. The nurses who elected to care for them were stigmatised along with their patients.  But until now, their story has not been told.Guests:Geraldine Fela, author of ‘Critical care: Nurses on the frontline of Australia’s AIDS crisis’ (NewSouth), Historian, postdoctoral research fellow in Macquarie University’s Department of History and ArchaeologyMarilyn Beaumont, Federal Secretary of the Nurses Union through the critical years of the AIDS epidemic  

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer may have won an historic victory for Labour in the UK, but remarkably low voter turn-out suggests he has a large task ahead of him in restoring voter trust in politics, in addition to the task he set himself to restore economic stability and rebuild the health system. Guests: Ian Dunt, columnist with the 'I' newspaper. Ros Taylor, author of The Future of Trust, published by Melville House. She’s also co-host of the Oh God What Now, The Bunker and Jam Tomorrow podcasts. 

The ink had barely dried on the deal for the French subs that then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull had signed when a group of people behind the scenes started the campaign to get out of it. They had concerns that the subs would not meet the requirements that the Americans had for Australia in their role in the Indo-Pacific. Particularly in relation to China.Guest: Andrew Fowler, author of Nuked: The Submarine Fiasco that Sank Australia’s Sovereignty (Melbourne University Press)

As the world reels from the assassination attempt on former President Trump, Bruce Shapiro put the events into context of America's history of violence and the current Presidential election campaign.Guest: Bruce Shapiro, contributing editor with The Nation magazine; Executive Director of the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia University. 

Laura Tingle reflects on the legislation the Albanese government has yet to get through parliament, including changes to the Religious Discrimination Act and electoral reform.Guest: Laura Tingle, Chief Political Correspondent, 7.30

The young Rupert Murdoch was a radical who espoused socialism, kept a bust of Lenin in his uni accommodation and then went on to build his empire from 1950s Adelaide. Walter Marsh is a journalist and author of Young Rupert - the making of the Murdoch empire,  published by Scribe. 

Azar Nafisi, Iranian-American writer and professor of English literature believes we need to read dangerously in order to resist the populist and polarising impulses of contemporary politics. Her book is called Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times.

Journalist and author Lara Marlowe reflects on the life and work of her late partner, the great English writer and journalist Robert Fisk in her memoir Love In A Time Of War: My Years with Robert Fisk. 

The brilliance of Elena Kats-Chernin was first discovered when she was only four years old and from that moment she has been unable to imagine a life without composing music. She's since forged an international career as a composer across a huge range of genres. Elena even scored our LNL opening theme! In 2019 she was awarded an Order of Australia for her distinguished service to music as a composer.First broadcast in 2019.

One of Australia's most beloved performers, Magda Szubanski, star of Kath & Kim, Fast Forward and films including Babe and Goddess, talks to Phillip about her life and her extraordinary 'mongrel family history', which includes Irish, Polish, Italian and Scottish backgrounds. This was first broadcast in 2013.

'The Big Fella', Jack Lang, twice premier of NSW, was one of Australia's most controversial politicians and loved and hated with a visceral intensity. During the Great Depression he was dismissed from office by the NSW Governor for refusing to repay interest on Commonwealth loans. He was expelled from the Labor party in 1942 and re-admitted in 1971 with the support of his young protégé, Paul Keating. Paul Keating, former Labor prime minister, and Frank Cain, historian.First broadcast on November 17, 2005.

The Whitlam era saw a great leap forward for women's rights in Australia, driven by Women’s Adviser Elizabeth Reid and a host of female activists, backed by a grass roots movement across the country. Their work is recognised in a book released to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of Reid’s appointment. Guests:- Dr Elizabeth Reid, former Women's Adviser to Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, feminist development worker, academic and writer.- Michelle Arrow, Professor in Modern History at Macquarie University and editor of 'Women and Whitlam: Revisiting the Revolution,' published by New South Books.- Ranuka Tandan from the Whitlam Institute's Public Affairs Team.First broadcast in 2023.

Keith Devlin from Stanford University argues in his book Finding Fibonacci that the 13thC mathematician made a far greater contribution to Western civilisation than his eponymous sequence. He's been on a crusade to get the world to recognise Fibonacci as the man who introduced Hindu-Arabic numbers to the West.Originally broadcast in 2017.

In her memoir The Soul of A Woman, the best-selling Chilean author Isabel Allende explores how feminism has shaped her life over the past seven decades. At a very young age, as she raged against her patriarchal, Catholic, conservative family, her mother believed her rebelliousness was caused by a medical condition.First broadcast in 2021.

Deborah Cheetham-Fraillon AO talks to Phillip about composing Australia's first Indigenous opera, Pecan Summer, founding her Short Black Opera Company and her work encouraging Indigenous kids to get more involved in singing and the arts.

In Phillip Adams' last Late Night Live, Laura Tingle turns the tables and interviews Phillip. They discuss how the political conversations and media landscape has changed since Phillip started at the ABC back in 1991, and what his hopes are for Australia.Host: Laura Tingle, Chief Political Correspondent, 7.30Guest: Phillip Adams, host of Late Night Live

Phillip Adams and philosopher Peter Singer sit down for a broad-ranging chat, contemplating everything from how far the animal liberation movement has come since the 1970's, to why public debate has become so challenging, and the ethical conundrums posed by AI.

Naomi Klein’s investigation into why she is constantly mistaken for author of The Beauty Myth and anti-vax campaigner Naomi Wolf, leads her to the world of doppelgangers, conspiracy theories, mis-and-dis-information, how this is playing out in Israel’s attacks on Gaza and why voices on the left have failed to make progress on the key challenge of our time, climate change. Guest: Naomi Klein, author of Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World, published by Penguin, and Professor of Climate Justice at the University of British Columbia.

In Phillip's last show with his regular contributors, Laura Tingle, Bruce Shapiro and Ian Dunt look at the release of Julian Assange,  the importance of the AUKUS alliance, and the big stories they have covered over their many years on the little wireless program. Guests: Laura Tingle, Chief Political Correspondent, 7.30Bruce Shapiro, contributing editor with The Nation magazine; Executive Director of the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia UniversityIan Dunt, Columnist with the “I” newspaper.

Phillip Adams is joined by comrades Frank Bongiorno, Jon Piccini and Meredith Burgmann for a romp through the history of the political left in Australia and an assessment of what's left of the left today. 

Simon Winchester has appeared on Late Night Live many times over the years to discuss his bestselling books. Now he and Phillip discuss Simon's own phenomenal life - from entering boarding school in England at the age of 4 to having his beehives in Massachusetts raided by bears. 

When the hammer thwacked down at Christie’s New York in November 2017, the ‘Salvator Mundi’ attributed to Leonardo da Vinci went for $450 million, making it the world’s most expensive artwork ever sold. But who bought it, who actually painted it and where is it now? Guest: Ben Lewis, art historian and documentary-makerBen's book is 'The Last Leonardo: The Secret Lives of the World's Most Expensive Painting' (Penguin Random House)

In the hard work of livestock rearing, in the long nights in the shed helping the sheep to lamb, Irish author John Connell can reflect on what life truly means. His new book is Twelve Sheep: Life lessons from a lambing season and is published by Allen and Unwin.

It was largely the work of anthropology that altered our world views on race and culture – now backed thoroughly by genomics.   So what can anthropology offer us today, to deal with the many problems we face as a human species?Guest: Wade Davis, Professor of Anthropology and the BC Leadership Chair in Cultures and Ecosystems at Risk at the University of British Columbia.  He’s also the former Explorer-in-Residence at National Geographic Magazine, photographer, film-maker and author of over 20 books. His latest book is Beneath The Surface Of Things: New and Selected Essays , published by Greystone Books. 

With the UK election just a few weeks away, Ian Dunt offers his assessment of the campaign so far; including the rise of Nigel Farage’s Reform party. It's  no longer just nipping at the Tories' heels – instead it’s looking like it could take a big chunk out of the conservatives rear end.  Ian Dunt: LNL’s regular commentator on UK politics and Columnist for iNews.

"The hardest thing I've ever done in public life was appearing with the Prime Minister to give that press conference." Minister for Indigenous Australians, Linda Burney, is known for remaining determinedly positive, despite facing very difficult circumstances in her personal life and enduring the devastating result of the referendum on constitutional recognition and a Voice to parliament in 2023.  But she says she's determined to focus on the six million Australians who voted yes, and on the young Indigenous leaders who emerged in the process. Guest: Linda Burney MP, Minister for Indigenous Australians.

China has its eye on Australia's critical minerals which will be a key focus of Premier Li's visit to Australia. Both countries are choosing not to emphasise issues that could strain the relationship, in favour of advancing their respective economic interests.  Meanwhile the Teals are in focus as a redistribution means Kylea Tink will lose her seat, while Climate 200 announce their intention to target nine other Coalition seats at the next election. And Phillip talks to David Marr about becoming the new host of Late Night Live. Guest: Laura Tingle, Chief Political Correspondent, 7.30

In his new book, George Monbiot says the trend towards neoliberalism began in the 1930s, and has so dominated the political narrative that its now seen as the natural way of things. So as the far-right once again marches to power, is this moment a political tipping point in the direction of fascism? And can this be reversed before the planet reaches its own ecological tipping point? Guardian columnist and author, George Monbiot. His new book The Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism (& How It Came to Control Your Life) is co-authored with filmmaker Peter Hutchison and published by Penguin Australia.

How should we consider the the work of celebrated French artist Paul Gaugin in 2024, in the light of accusations of sexual predation of young women and colonial exploitation and appropriation. A new book attempts to "rescue Gaugin's art from the artist himself".Guest: Anthropologist Nicholas Thomas, author of Gaugin in Polynesia (Bloomsbury)

Geoffrey Watson SC had high hopes for the National Anti-Corruption Commission, but when their first decision was not to proceeed with an investigation into possible corruption in relation to the Robodebt disaster, he was more than just disappointed.Guest: Geoffrey Watson SC, Director of The Centre for Public Integrity 

Literary historian Jonathan Schroeder has unearthed a rare and remarkable story written in 1855 by John S. Jacobs about his fight for freedom from slavery and his fierce denunciation of the American laws that allowed it.

President Biden has got the approval from the UN Security Council for a three stage peace deal, but can he get Israel and Hamas on board? Bruce Shapiro on the latest from America.Guest: Bruce Shapiro, contributing editor with The Nation magazine; Executive Director of the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia University. 

Kay Kinane was a school-teacher from Perth born in 1912 who went on to become Deputy Director of the ABC’s Education Department in the 1960s – the first woman to hold such a position.  Her story is little known, but these historians want to make sure Kay’s incredible contribution - and indeed the contributions of other trailblazing Australian women – take their rightful place in our history books. 

Kay Kinane was a school-teacher from Perth who went on to become Deputy Director of the ABC’s Education Department in the 1960s – the first woman to hold such a position. And she did it with cheek, determination, and a remarkable eye on the future of broadcasting.

Climate scientist Rob Jackson travelled the world in search of climate solutions and explains what he found and how we can feasibly return the atmosphere to pre-industrial times.   Guests; Rob Jackson: Prof. of Earth Sciences Stanford University and author of Into the clear blue sky: the path to restoring our atmosphere. Pep Canadell: Chief Research Scientist, CSIRO Environment 

Besides launching rockets at Israel after Israel attacked its embassy in Damascus, Iran has shown remarkable restraint when it comes to intervening in the war on Gaza. Ali Ansari argues that apart from some notable - and extreme - exceptions, Iran has a long history of support for the state of Israel and has historically hosted a large community of Jews. Ali Ansari, Professor of Iranian History at the University of St. Andrews. He is the author of ‘Modern Iran Since 1797: Reform and Revolution.’

Phillip Adams takes a look back through the history of philosophy to understand why it’s become one of the most male dominated areas of the humanities. Guest: Regan Penaluna is the Brooklyn-based author of How to Think Like a Woman: Four Women Philosophers Who Taught Me How to Love the Life of the Mind, published in Australia by Allen and Unwin. 

For 40 years, Amit Shah has been Narendra Modi’s right-hand man. Today, Amit Shah is India’s second-most powerful figure, so why don’t we know anything about him? Guest: Atul Dev - fellow at Columbia Journalism School in New York who wrote this profile of Amit Shah for The Guardian. 

It thrived in the age of the dinosaur but today only a small isolated colony exists. How is the Wollemi Pine coping with its exposure to modernity and what is the future for this ancient species?Berin Mackenzie: Research Scientist, NSW Dept. of Planning Industry and Environment.

Mexico elected climate scientist and left wing Claudia Sheinbaum in a landslide victory to become the first female President. Professor Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera is a Mexican political analyst at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University in Arlington, Virginia. 

Could the Tories pull off a 5th successive election win or will they be given the boot? Meanwhile a revamped Labour party is quietly confident it will form government for the first time in 14 years. Ian Dunt assesses the first 2 weeks of the election campaign  Ian Dunt: LNL’s regular commentator on UK politics and iNews columnist.

The history of 50 years of activism, from marriage reform and women's refuges, to AIDS and HIV funding, and even the Mens Shed movement is the subject of a new book: Personal Politics: Sexuality, Gender and the Remaking of Citizenship in Australia.Co-authors and guests: Leigh Boucher and Michelle ArrowCo-Authors:Barbara BairdRobert Reynolds

Immigration Minister Andrew Giles is under further pressure after having to admit the government is not in fact using drones to surveil former detainees. A proposed seat distribution in Victoria had some Liberals hoping Josh Frydenburg would run again, while others (including Frydenburg himself) were not so keen. Guest: Laura Tingle, Chief Political Correspondent, 7.30

At the end of the Greek civil war 12,000 communists were secretly evacuated from Albania to the USSR and resettled in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Stalin orchestrated the move to hide them in freighters where they were forbidden from coming up for air until they reached the Black Sea. The combatants were resettled in former POW camps and many were not allowed to return to Greece until an amnesty in 1981. Among them was Helen's Vatsikopoulos's aunt.Guest: Helen Vatsikopoulos, journalist, academic and Professional Industry Fellow Journalism and Writing, University of Technology Sydney. 

Anne Applebaum makes the argument that there is a global campaign by autocratic countries like Russia and China to discredit democracy and liberalism. MAGA supporters are also being influenced by propaganda campaigns on issues like Ukraine and COVID and are also starting to believe that democracy and human rights are not worth fighting for.Guest: Anne Applebaum, staff writer at The Atlantic and author of the soon to be released Autocracy, Inc: The Dictators Who Want To Run The World. 

Bob Rogers landed his first job in radio as a panel operator in Melbourne in 1942. He became an announcer at 7HO in Hobart in 1949 and he's still behind the microphone in 2012, now as the morning presenter on Sydney radio station 2CH. He talks about the history of commercial radio in Australia and his part in it.

In the 1960's Jane Goodall became a household name for her groundbreaking work with chimpanzees in Tanzania. Now, at 90 years old, she has travelled to Australia to inspire people to take action to slow down climate change. Guest: Dr Jane Goodall - primatologist and anthropologist; UN Messenger of Peace and Founder of the Jane Goodall Institute. She is currently in Australia for her Reasons for Hope tour. Listen to Phillip and Jane doing an extended interview back in 1997 here.

It's now 30 years since the Rwandan genocide that saw almost one million citizens die in just 100 days in likely the fastest genocide in history.  Soon Rwandans return to the polls where it's almost guaranteed that President Paul Kagame, the leader now for 20 years, will be re-elected. Despite a dire human rights record and the assassination of perceived critics and enemies, at home and abroad, Kagame remains the "global elite's favourite strongman" and continues to be economically propped up by the West.Guest: Michela Wrong is the author of Do Not Disturb: The Story of a Political Murder and an African Regime Gone Bad

Author and pro-democracy activist Ma Thida was imprisoned by the military junta in Myanmar for daring to oppose the regime. Her latest book is a rare glimpse inside the murky world of a country where the internet is frequently cut off and dissidents murdered in cold blood.Guest: Ma Thida, activist and author of ‘A-maze: Myanmar’s Struggle for Democracy, 2011-2023’, published by Balestier press. Ma is Chair of the Writer in Prison Committee of PEN International.

A US Supreme Court judge had the American flag flying upside down outside his house. What does this signify and does it threaten the integrity of the Supreme Court?Guest: Bruce Shapiro, contributing editor with The Nation magazine; Executive Director of the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia University. 

Clive Hamilton says the privileges enjoyed by the rich and powerful in Australia are not only unfair but cause widespread harm, from the everyday slights and humiliations visited on those lower down the scale to distortions in the labour market when elites use their networks to secure plum jobs.Guest: Clive Hamilton, academic and author of ‘The Privileged Few’ (co-authored with Myra Hamilton), published by Polity Press.

In the first reconciliation week since the failure of the referendum, the government needs to re-build trust with the Aboriginal community and manage those Australians who didn't vote for recognition. Attorney-General Mary Dreyfus will present a bill on hate speech to try and tackle anti-Semitic and Islamophobic attacks while the Greens will push Labor to recognise the Palestinian state.Guest: Bernard Keane, political editor, Crikey

Philosopher A.C. Grayling joined Phillip in the studio to explain why he's turned his gaze to the moon. In his 32nd book - Who Owns the Moon: In Defence of Humanity’s Common Interests in Space - Grayling urges us to think of the new space race not as some pie-in-the-sky futuristic notion but instead a reality that is unfolding now.  Guest: A.C. Grayling is Principal of Northeastern University London and the author of more than 30 books.  

Millions of Palestinians live in Jordan, where rage about the suffering in Gaza has reached a boiling point.Guest: Lebanese/Australian journalist Rania Abouzeid reports on the unrest in the Middle East from Beirut, Lebanon.

Aaron Bateman traces the development and vulnerabilities of the technologies that connect us, from undersea cables first laid in 1858 to shortwave radio and then to a new generation of satellites in the 21st century.

Since 2018, journalist Alisa Sopova and photographer Anastasia Taylor-Lind have documented everyday life near the conflict zone in Ukraine, capturing the lives lost or interrupted as the war escalates. They join Phillip in person to talk about their collaborative project 5k From the Frontline, their own stories of trauma and survival, and share a poem or two as well.

Two UK high court judges have granted Julian Assange the right to a fresh appeal against the decision to extradite him to the USA to face 17 charges of espionage. The judges were not convinced by the assurances lawyers for the US government gave that Julian would be able to rely on first amendments rights to free speech for journalists. Stella Assange explains what needs to happen next. Guest: Stella Assange, wife of Julian Assange

French/Algerian journalist Nabila Ramdani analyses why France is in turmoil in 2024, and how it could remedy its current problems, in her new book “Fixing France: How to Repair a Broken Republic” published by Hurst. 

Britain is well and truly in election mode with major speeches and events from both the government and opposition . Ian Dunt offers his assessment.  Ian Dunt: iNews columnist and regular LNL commentator

Back in 2020, we met Paul Salopek, a journalist who was retracing the steps of human migration out of Africa – a 24,000 mile journey across the world. Originally projected to take 7 years, it's now been over a decade and he is still walking…When we last caught up with Paul he was in Myanmar; Now, he's back in Georgia after walking the span of China. We find out how he's going and what still lies ahead. 

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton says he wants to get Australians back into the housing market by reducing immigration. It was the key announcement in his budget reply speech which focused on the increasing pressures on Australian households, such as access to healthcare, childcare and congestion on our roads. But immigration and housing experts are saying the proposed reduction in numbers will have a minimal impact on the complex factors playing into the housing shortage.  Guest: Laura Tingle, Chief Political Correspondent, 7.30

Social class, gender and race are well known as key drivers of life outcomes. But there are also countless ‘ripples of randomness’ that can inexplicably change our direction and shift life’s flow.Mark Rank: Professor of Social Welfare at Washington University in St. Louis. Author of The Random factor: How chance and luck profoundly shape our lives and the world around us  (University of California Press; April 2024),

In 1985, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev cautioned the world “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought”. Decades later, we're closer to nuclear Armageddon than ever before, and investigative journalist Annie Jacobsen paints a devastating picture of exactly what that would look like.   

Eleven years after launching an ambitious plan to rid the world's ocean of plastics, Dutch inventor and entrepreneur Boyan Slat talks to Phillip Adams about his mission, the challenges and the wins. Guest: Boyan Slat is the founder and CEO of The Ocean Cleanup, a non-profit organisation developing and scaling technologies to rid the world’s oceans of plastic.

Pre-eminent human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson looks at whether international law is capable of appropriately handling the trial of a head of state like Vladimir Putin, should he ever be charged with the crime of aggression for the war against Ukraine. So far, the international community has been powerless to stop the bloodshed, and in other cases like the war on Gaza, the state of Israel has simply ignored order from the International Court of Justice. So what is the role of international law? And should the UN Security Council be replaced with something more effective? Geoffrey Robertson KC, author, “The trial of Vladimir Putin”, published in Australia by New South Books.  Geoffrey is also Founding Head of Chambers at Doughty Street Chambers in London.

Russia’s decaying Soviet era infrastructure and present day neglect are causing huge environmental problems. Citizens in regional areas not only have to live with the devastation caused by frequent flooding they also endure substandard and unhealthy drinking water.  Paul Josephson: – Emeritus Professor, Colby College in Maine. Currently at the Barcelona Institute of International Studies. Author of Hero Projects; the Russian Empire and  Big technology from Lennin to Putin.( Oxford Uni) 

The conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation has laid down their policy manifesto for a possible conservative Presidency in 2025. Do the policies align with what Trump has been proposing for his next term? And should we take them seriously?Guests: Bruce Shapiro, contributing editor with The Nation magazine; Executive Director of the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia UniversityEmma Shortis, Senior Research Fellow at the International Security Affairs Program at The Australia Institute and author of Project 2025, the policy substance behind Trump’s showmanship, reveals a radical plan to reshape the world.

Coups, assassinations, detentions and disinformation are just some of the tactics that have been used to undermine democracies. But who is behind them? A new research consortium is delving into the connections between politicians, think-tanks and private IT companies who they say are propping up reactionary forces around the world. And their work has drawn links between Israel, India and Mexico. Guest: David Adler, Co-General Coordinator of Progressive International and founder of its research consortium on The Reactionary International. 

Treasurer Jim Chalmers is about to hand down his third budget - the likely last before the next election. The government needs to sell a message of being fiscally responsible and staving off inflation while addressing increasing demands to address the cost of living and housing crises. Can they do it?Guest: Laura Tingle, Chief Political Correspondent, 7.30

Hugh Mackay is one of Australia's leading social psychologist who examines our society today and asks timely and urgent questions about its future in his new book The Way We Are : Lessons from a lifetime of listening - published by Allen and Unwin.

The Pacific has the world’s lowest rate of women’s representation in Parliament. What can be done to solve this deeply entrenched problem and how might gender quotas play a role? Guests:Pionie Boso is the program manager at the Women’s Rights Action Movement in the Solomon Islands. In 2011, she was awarded an International Women of Courage Award for her work in tackling domestic violence.  Dr Theresa Meki is a Pacific Research Fellow with the ANU’s Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs.

How did an unknown Marxist scholar sell half a million copies of a book about degrowth communism in his homeland of Japan? And why is a complete transformation of our economic life necessary to save the planet?  Guest: Kohei Saito is an associate professor at the University of Tokyo, and the youngest-ever winner of the Deutscher Memorial Prize for scholarship in the Marxist tradition. His book is Slow Down: How degrowth communism can save the earth (Hachette Australia). 

At a time when US security feels less assured, should Japan and Australia be forging stronger ties? Japanese author, playwright and translator Roger Pulvers says that while defence is an important arm of our relationship, we should also lean into our shared cultural and commercial interests. 

Adventurer Robyn Davidson's new memoir brings us the story of her nomadic life of constant travel and reveals an unquenchable curiosity about different ways of seeing the world.Unfinished Woman is published by Bloomsbury

Mexico has filed a case against Ecuador in the International Court of Justice, accusing it of violating diplomatic rights after it raided their embassy to arrest former Vice-President, Jorge Glas. Ecuador has filed a counter-claim saying Mexico is interfering in Ecuadorian sovereignty. So what rights does a nation state have to prosecute people accused of corruption and abuses of power? Is diplomatic asylum being abused in order to avoid being held to account? And when are corruption allegations being misused for political purposes? Guest: Eduardo Bohórquez, Executive Director of Transparencia Mexicana – the Mexico Chapter of Transparency International. 

Ian Dunt provides his analysis of the disastrous local council elections for the Conservative Party which will likely push back the General Election to late in the year.Guest: Ian Dunt, columnist with the "i".

The average farmer in America is no longer someone in gumboots mending fences and riding tractors. Barons is the story of seven corporate titans who now dominate the American food system. Many of them are still family-run companies worth billions. Austin Frerick says there are similar approaches to the industrialised food system that include political donations, cases of animal cruelty, worker abuses, corrupted academic research and the use of trade associations and shell companies to obscure links to their operations. And those companies are also operating in Australia.Guest: Austin Frerick, fellow of the Thurman Arnold Project at Yale, and author, Barons: money, power, and the corruption of America’s food industry, published by Island Press.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has weighed in to the use of slogans at pro-Palestinian university campus rallies as a Rafah ground invasion grows closer. The Treasurer targets students in the latest cost of living measures announced ahead of next week's budget, but no sign of increases to Job Seeker, and the Opposition maintains pressure on Immigration Minister Andrew Giles after the bashing of a Perth woman allegedly involved a former detainee. Guest: Laura Tingle, Chief Political Correspondent, 7.30

What can two of Australia's literary greats teach us about letter writing? Brigitta Olubas and Susan Wyndham joined Phillip Adams in the studio to discuss an extraordinary new book of letters penned over forty years by novelists Shirley Hazzard and Elizabeth Harrower. Hazzard and Harrower: The Letters is published by NewSouth Books. 

Lorraine Peeters, herself a stolen child and survivor of Cootamundra Home for Girls, has spent her life healing herself and others, creating the organisation Marumali which provides culturally powerful training to service providers. Her daughter, Shaan Peeters, is now taking over the reins as director.

Water rights were promised to Indigenous communities in the Murray Darling Basin a year ago. What has happened to those commitments from the Federal Government?Guest: Uncle Brendan Kennedy is a Wadi Wadi and Tati Tati traditional owner from Robinvale in Victoria

Johann Hari discusses the health risks and rewards of the new weight loss drugs. What does the huge demand for these drugs say about our troubled relationship with food?Guest: Johann Hari, author of Magic Pill: The Extraordinary Benefits and Disturbing Risks of the New Weight Loss Drugs (Bloomsbury)

Bruce Shapiro has been watching the protests taking place at Columbia University over the last ten days from his office window. 100 students were arrested at the Gaza Solidarity Encampment which has triggered similar protests at campuses across America.Guest: Bruce Shapiro, contributing editor with the Nation Magazine and Executive Director of the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia University.

Over the last thirty years, watching wildlife in nature became Satyajit Das' gravitational centre. His new book Wild Quests is a literal and metaphorical record of these travels. 

Could the ocean offer us a way to make ethical and emotional sense of the past, and help us re-imagine our relationship to the world? Australian writer James Bradley thinks so.James joined Phillip Adams to talk about his new book Deep Water: The World in the Ocean, which explores the deepest recesses of the natural world and weaves together science, history and personal experience.  

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's attendance at a rally against gendered violence has backfired as one of the rally organisers claimed he lied about not being asked to speak at the event. Sarah Williams, founder of the 'What Were You Wearing’ organisation has called for an apology from the Prime Minister and a women's strike on May 20. Guest: Laura Tingle, Chief Political Correspondent, 7.30

The tradition of the ANZAC is almost always gendered male (and white). But what about women? They served and died for their country. Historian Melanie Oppenheimer believes they are yet to receive the commemorations they are due.Author of: The Power of Humanity: 100 Years of Australian Red Cross100 words plus Guests name & book 

In his latest book, Life so Full of Promise: further biographies of Australia lost generation , Historian Ross McMullin documents and remembers the lives of three outstanding young Australians who served and lost their lives in World War 1.

A new documentary reveals the little-known role of the Greek Island of Lemnos in the Anzac story, and the multicultural mateship that developed between the Indian, Sikh and Gurkha forces who fought alongside Australia and New Zealand's diggers.Guest: Elizabeth Kaydos, Producer/Researcher of 'Anzac. Lemnos. 1915' - a new documentary screening on SBS.

Palestinian lawyer Hiba Husseini and Israeli politician Yossi Beilin have spent decades working towards a political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They share why they remain hopeful that peace can be achieved and what it might realistically take to get there. 

Natalie Haynes has been called a ‘very modern classicist’ for her work bringing the Greek myths to a wide audience through fiction, non-fiction and even comedy. In her new book Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth, Natalie reclaims and re-imagines the stories of deities who have been reduced to stereotypes and bit parts.  Guest: Natalie Haynes author of Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth. (Pan Macmillan). Natalie will be a guest of the Sydney Writers’ Festival in May.

PM Rishi Sunak's looks like he has finally got his Rwanda bill through, but will it remain in place if there is a change of government?

How did Germany transform itself from a fascist dictatorship and European pariah post World War 2 to a democratic and economic powerhouse? Author Frank Trentmann joins LNL for a look at this gripping history and the role of contemporary Germany in Europe.Out of the Darkness is published by Penguin Australia

In the tradition of Prime Ministers past, Anthony Albanese heads off to walk the Kokoda trail and shore up relations with PNG. The Treasurer hints at hits to our economic growth forecasts ahead of the budget, and the Opposition changes its tune over the proposed new misinformation bill and aligns itself with government's demand that Elon Musk remove graphic violent content from Platform X. Guest: Laura Tingle, Chief Political Correspondent, 7.30

Two of the most impressive Scottish writers and thinkers are also great friends. Andrew O'Hagan and Professor Karl Miller discuss the power of landscape and history in shaping Scottish imagination and writing, and why Scotland's consistently punched above its weight in these terms.This interview was originally broadcast on 6th September 2012.Guests: Karl Miller died in 2014. Andrew O'Hagan will be at the Melbourne Writers Festival in May 2024.

Long before the satirical film American Fiction made it to our screens, writers and publishers have grappled with the idea of the ‘race novel’. And just as the Black American characters in the film confronted race and class expectations, First Nation writers in Australia find themselves at the mercy of similar prejudices. Writer Tony Birch joins Phillip Adams to discuss First Nations writing in Australia today. 

The world’s most expensive spice appears in the written record as early as 2300 BCE, and is revered by cultures around the globe. It takes between 70,000 and 200,000 flowers to produce just one kilogram of dried saffron threads. But the precious and sacred plant is under serious threat from climate change.Guest: Nina Elkadi, Plant Humanities Fellow at Dumbarton Oaks, Harvard

South Africa goes to the polls on May 29 and the ANC - the party of Nelson Mandela - which has ruled South Africa unchallenged for thirty years, is in trouble electorally. Guest: John Matisonn, journalist and author of God, Spies And Lies: finding South Africa's future through its past, published by Ideas for Africa.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ian Johnson introduces us to the brave people inside China that are challenging the Chinese Communist Party on its most sensitive ground: its control of history. 

Donald Trump spent his first day in the dock as a criminal defendant. Bruce Shapiro talks us through the day, including the reported snooze from the former President.Guest: Bruce Shapiro, contributing editor with The Nation magazine; Executive Director of the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia University. 

What if every murderer had no control over their actions? What if an Olympic gold medallist was purely the product of biology and good luck? Neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky tackles these and other questions as he contends that we have absolutely no free will. 

Laura Tingle on how the media found itself in hot water over its reporting on the Bondi Junction killings and its involvement in the Bruce Lehrmann defamation trial. Plus why Labor is fast losing support in key seats over its handling of Israel's attacks on Gaza. Guest: Laura Tingle, Chief Political Correspondent, 7.30

Have you ever paused to think how and when books and text became divided into chapters? Nicholas Dames has.Nicholas Dames: Professor of Humanities at Columbia University. Author of The Chapter; a segmented history from antiquity to the 21st century ( Princeton University press)

In 2014 and 2016, two shipwrecks were found which answered a lengthy mystery – what happened to Sir John Franklin’s North-West Passage expedition, which had been missing since 1845? The wrecks were found thanks to Inuit testimony, and now people are wondering why it took so long for that local knowledge to be trusted. Guest: Annaliese Jacobs Claydon, author of “Arctic Circles and Imperial Knowledge - The Franklin Family, Indigenous Intermediaries, and the Politics of Truth” published by Bloomsbury Academic press

The Anglican Church systematically buried complaints about sex abusers in Newcastle during the 1970’s onwards.  Author and social philosopher Anne Mann's new book looks at this infamous era in the Anglican Church.  Author of: Crimes of the Cross: The Anglican Paedophile Network of Newcastle, Its Protectors and the Man Who Fought for Justice

Tim Faulkner dreams of a day when national parks across mainland Australia are free of feral predators, and where now-extinct mammals like the eastern quoll or Tassie devil roam freely. That dream may soon come one step closer to reality when a small number of eastern quolls are released in New South Wales, more than half a century after they became extinct on the mainland.  Guest: Tim Faulkner is managing director of not-for-profit Aussie Ark.  

The Spanish Civil War (1936-39) is remembered as a dress rehearsal for World War 2, a class struggle, a religious struggle, a battle between left and right, between fascism and communism. While the conflict left deep scars on Spanish society, the impact of the war went far beyond its borders. To document and discuss the conflict and the international response, a new  Virtual Museum of the Spanish Civil war is being created by historians from some 30 countries.Judith Keene: Association Professor, History department, University of Sydney.

The NSW Labor government promised to establish a huge koala sanctuary on the mid North Coast to be known as the Great Koala National Park. A desperately needed habitat to shore up rapidly dwindling koala numbers. Now a year into office, the park is still not established and the reasons are to do with carbon credits.Guest: Stephen Long, Senior Fellow and Contributing Editor at The Australia Institute

The debate over British arms sales to Israel, Tory MP William Wragg resigns after a honey trap blackmail scandal. Rishi Sunak's inappropriate laugh. Keir Starmer marks 4th year as opposition leader.Ian Dunt: Regular LNL commentator and iNews columnist.

Playwright David Williamson has come out of retirement to write a new play about the housing crisis and the increasing divide between the haves and have-nots in Australia. He says neoliberal ideology, which has been embraced by both major parties, has made the wealthy ever richer and seen many Australians lose hope of ever affording their own home.Guest: Playwright David Williamson

The Prime Minister has responded to the Israeli Defence Force inquiry into the death of aid worker Zomi Frankcom and her colleagues, saying their explanations are unsatisfactory. Meanwhile former Labor Minister Craig Emerson recommends multi-million dollar fines for the supermarket duopoly if they step out of line. Guest: Bernard Keane, political editor, Crikey

Eco-feminist and food sovereignty activist Dr Vandana Shiva welcomes the news that the International Criminal Court will this year consider whether it can add ecocide as a prosecutable crime under international law. She says ecocide is a form of genocide and ecological apartheid has been occurring in many places around the world, including Gaza, to separate people from their land.Guest: Dr Vandana Shiva, environmental activist, physicist, and author. Co-Founder of Navdanya, the seed-saving centre and movement for the protection of biological and cultural diversity in India. 

Finding a car park can sometimes seem a challenge, particularly in big cities, but could there actually be too many car parks in the world? Henry Grabar argues that there are many unintended costs and impacts of parking your car including making housing more expensive and having a negative impact on the environment.Henry Grabar: a staff writer at Slate who writes about housing, transportation, and urban policy. A 2024 Loeb Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.Author of: Paved Paradise: How Parking explains the world

It sets our species apart and has enabled us to create great civilisations but if our most defining characteristic is our intelligence and capacity to learn - should we keep it for ourselves or should we develop, program and teach it to  machines and computers?Guest: Leslie Valiant: Professor of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics at Harvard University.Author of The Importance of Being Educable 

We last spoke with Professor Viet Thanh Nguyen nine years ago about his debut novel The Sympathizer, which went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.His new memoir covers his family's journey from Vietnam in the 1970's fleeing war, to life as a refugee in America.The memoir is called A Man of Two Faces, published by Grove Press. You can hear Viet speaking at the upcoming Sydney and Melbourne Writers Festivals. 

Anna Funder's interventions in history have seen her notch up numerous literary accolades - a Miles Franklin, the Samuel Johnson Prize, and now a long-listing for the inaugural Women's Prize for Non-fiction. Anna Funder is the author of Wifedom: Mrs Orwell's Invisible Life. Funder spent six years meticulously untangling the threads of history to uncover the extraordinary life of Eileen O’Shaughnessy, wife of George Orwell.Guest: Anna Funder. Her earlier books are Stasiland and All That I Am.

Bruce Shapiro explains the significance of the Comstock Act from 1871 and how it is being used in arguments about contraception and abortion in 2024. And Robert F Kennedy chooses a running mate.Guest: Bruce Shapiro, contributing editor with The Nation magazine; Executive Director of the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia University. 

Jack Thompson, actor, activist, poetry aficionado, Bob Dylan fan, sits down with Phillip to talk about family and films and living with dialysis.This program was originally broadcast on 1 October 2018.

The founder of the Extinction Rebellion, Rupert Read, says for too long the choices on climate action have been limited to either consumer choices or radical protests. He says there needs to be a space for action between these two alternatives. So Read has started The Climate Majority Project – a new approach to gain broad-based consensus on how to meaningfully respond to the crisis. And he plans to take it to the world.Guest: Emeritus Professor Rupert Read, co-author and editor of 'The Climate Majority Project — Setting the Stage for a Mainstream, Urgent Climate Movement,' published by London Publishing Partnership.

Ice, ice baby... Max Leonard explores how we have interacted with ice through the ages. 

Surrealism, the movement that gave us disembodied eyeballs, melting clocks and lobster phones, turns 100 this year. Mark Polizzotti, from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, argues that Surrealism was much more than an artistic or literary phenomenon. The Surrealists also delved into Marx and Freud and remain relevant today. Guest: Mark Polizzotti, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His new book is ‘Why Surrealism Matters’ (Yale University Press)

With more and more migrants and asylum seekers showing up at the US-Mexico border everyday and no solution to America's broken immigration system in sight, this could be the single most important issue in the US presidential race. Guest: Dara Lind - Senior Fellow at the American Immigration Council.

Dick Tamimi was an Indonesian pilot who was caught for smuggling gold into Thailand to buy the fledgling Indonesian government’s first plane in the 1950s. He went on to become a legendary record producer in Jakarta in the 1960s, producing Indonesia’s first all-girl rock band ‘Dara Puspita’. They were likened to Indonesia’s Beatles, and now their story is being turned into a musical.Guest: Julien Poulson, musician, arts producer and founder of the Cambodian Space Project.

After a string of losses there's yet another by- election for PM Rishi Sunak. Labour's Keir Starmer is poised for victory in the next UK election. What is he offering voters and who is he hoping will be his new MPs? Ian Dunt: columnist iNews and regular LNL commentator on UK politics

Dr Kirsty Sword Gusmao’s life has been marked by the most astonishing, cinematic twists and turns. From a quiet childhood in regional Victoria to clandestine work smuggling East Timorese men to safety, from falling in love with an imprisoned resistance fighter to First Lady of Timor-Leste. Now settled back in Australia, Kirsty joins Phillip Adams to reflect on an incredible thirty years of service to her adopted nation.  Dr Kirsty Sword Gusmao (AO) is the founder of the Alola Foundation. 

Laura Tingle analyses state election results in Tasmania and South Australia, and what they might mean for the major parties.Plus Labor conflict over gas project permissions legislation. Guest: Laura Tingle, Chief Political Correspondent, 7.30

Vesuvius has attracted many visitors over the years, from Goethe, Mozart and Lord Byron to a host of lesser-known lava-chasers who trooped to the summit, scorching their shoes and quaffing the local wine. Guest: John Brewer, Emeritus Professor at the California Institute of TechnologyHis new book is ‘Volcanic: Vesuvius in the Age of Revolutions’ (Yale University Press) 

In his new Quarterly Essay, journalist Lech Blaine delves into Opposition Leader Peter Dutton's family history, his work as a Queensland police officer, his life as a property developer and politician, and how these experiences have shaped him as a political leader. 

The female investigator has been a staple of popular culture for over 150 years, from Victorian lady detectives to plucky Miss Marple and tattooed hacker Lisbeth Salander. But what about the real-life women behind these fictional tales? Caitlin Davies traces the history of female private eyes who investigated everything from fraud and shoplifting to international espionage.Guest: Caitlin Davies, journalist and author of 'Private Inquiries: the Secret History of Female Sleuths’ (The History Press)

Investigative journalist Joey Watson has spent the last three years trying to work out who the KGB mole in ASIO was - only to find out that there was likely a nest of traitors operating in ASIO during the cold war. Guest: Joey Watson, producer of the podcast series Secrets we Keep: Nest of Traitors

One of ‘the most intriguing and least known footnotes in Australia-Indonesia relations’ is the relationship between President Soeharto and a man whose name has been kept secret from the public for more than fifty years. But a new reveals the story of the Aussie bloke from Geelong who became Soeharto’s closest adviser and confidante, and what he knew about corruption, power, East Timor and the Balibo Five.Guest: Dr Shannon Smith, author of ‘Occidental Preacher, Accidental Teacher – the enigmatic Clive Williams’, published by Big Hill Publishing. His second biographic volume on Williams will be out later this year.

There are divisions on both sides of politics in America with the young voters critical of Biden's response to the war in Gaza. And on the right, questions of censorship, the 1st Amendment and social media have been dividing conservative voices both on and off the Supreme Court.Guest: Bruce Shapiro, contributing editor with The Nation magazine; Executive Director of the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia University. 

In the late 19th century, Joseph Conrad made a number of visits to Australia whilst working as a merchant seafarer. In his book Marlow’s Dream, Martin Edmond recounts these voyages and explores the origins of Conrad’s stories.  

Surprisingly little is known about how Australian troops were sent to fight in the Iraq War. Thanks to Dr David Lee, ‘missing papers’ have now been released that help reveal what really happened in 2003.  

Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong will meet her Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, in Canberra this week,  the Liberals push their message on border control while confusion reigns over Palestinian visas and Tasmania heads to the polls. Guest: Rachel Withers, Editor-in Chief, The Politics

Back in 1977, the double murder of two young women in their homes in Easey Street in suburban Collingwood shocked the people of Melbourne. No-one has ever been charged over their deaths. Journalist Helen Thomas has been investigating the murders and believes there is enough new evidence for a new coronial inquest.Guest: Helen Thomas, producer of the podcast series The Easey Street Murders

Historians Tony Moore and Hamish Maxwell-Stewart guide us through Unshackled: a multi media touring exhibition that tells a new and different story about convicts, transportation and colonial Australia.A/Prof Tony Moore: Head of Communications and Media studies, Monash University. Lead Chief Investigator, ARC Linkage Project 'Conviction Politics: the convict routes of Australian democracy'Hamish Maxwell-Stewart: Professor of Heritage and Digital History, University of New England.

What is micro history and what can an unremarkable cargo ship from the 19th century tell us about the foundations of our modern age.Boyd Cothran: Associate professor of History, York University, Toronto.Co- author of The Edwin Fox: How an Ordinary Sailing Ship Connected the World in the Age of Globalization, 1850-1914

Liam Pieper took up ghost writing after he became unemployable following the release of his first book in 2014. The book was a memoir about growing up with bohemian dope smoking parents and his early life as a drug user and petty criminal. 10 years on he has ghost written several global best sellers as well 4 more books in his own right. Guest: Liam Pieper, whose latest book is called Appreciation

Prominent Israeli journalist Gideon Levy has received death threats and been shunned by some of his best friends for his coverage of Israel’s operations in Gaza. Yet he continues to strive to report fearlessly on the war and the toll it’s taking on both Gaza and Israel.  

An underwhelming budget, Ex Senior Tory Lee Anderson joins Reform party and former PM Theresa May to leave parliament.

Former Finance Minister of Greece, Yanis Varoufakis discusses his long relationship with Australia, the latest from Greece and Europe as well as the ongoing influence of America on our foreign policy, on Europe and on the Middle East.Guest: Yanis Varoufakis, economist, author and founder of Diem25

Amy Remeikis brings the latest issues from Canberra which in an effort to be green, are recycled. Nuclear energy, the demise of the ute and the Liberal Party's ongoing women problem. Guest: Amy Remeikis, Political Reporter, The Guardian

This International Women's Day while debate rages about the latest gender pay gap figures, LNL looks back at the women of Australia's history who led the fight for better wages and conditions, writing letters, leading protests and strikes, taking on male-dominated jobs and challenging our governments and our biggest employers to do better. Guests: Sally McManus, Secretary of the ACTUWil Stracke, Assistant Secretary at the Victorian Trades Hall Council and Tik Tok starRobynne Murphy, former steel worker, union delegate and producer and director of the documentary “Women of Steel” This story contains an excerpt from the film FOR LOVE OR MONEY: A History of Women and Work in Australia by Megan McMurchy, Margot Nash, Margot Oliver & Jeni Thornley, 1983.Guest Presenter Kylie Morris is also PRIMER's gendered violence reporter. 

Do doctors really make the worst patients? Beloved Australian writer Peter Goldworthy was forced to reflect on this, and a lot else besides, when he was diagnosed with multiple myeloma - a cancer of the bone marrow - in 2018.

The march to the 2024 Presidential elections continues apace with the Super Tuesday primaries and Supreme Court deliberations. Bruce Shapiro unwraps all the latest from the USA.Guest: Bruce Shapiro, contributing editor with The Nation magazine; Executive Director of the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia University. 

As Bob Brown heads into his 80th year, he talks to Phillip about a life of activism on forests, fish farms and the role independents might have in the upcoming Tasmanian election. He also talks about his work in East Timor and Tibet, and why he wants a statue of forgotten Tasmanian opera singer, Amy Sherwin. Guest: Former Greens Leader and Senator Bob Brown

Youth crime is once again on the political agenda in several Australian states and territories in the lead up to elections. Matt Noffs - grandson of the trailblazing Reverend Ted Noffs and CEO of the Ted Noffs Foundation challenges prevailing narratives on youth crime, punishment and drug use and considers how to break these cycles - for the good of young people and the community. Guest: Matt Noffs, CEO Ted Noffs Foundation

Maritime security and responding to the climate and energy challenge shape up as the key issues of the ASEAN leaders summit, with Foreign Minister Penny Wong warning of the most confronting set of circumstances in decades. Plus why the Dunkley by-election got so nasty, and what it says about campaign tactics.Guest: Laura Tingle, Chief Political Correspondent, 7.30

Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee has often been described as an outspoken darling of the Left. She describes herself and her famous family as posh left-wingers. Her latest book, part memoir, part social history traces her family's high profile links to social justice and other left-wing causes while exploring the guilt of coming from privilege. Guest: Polly Toynbee, journalist, author.Polly Toynbee will be appearing at the Adelaide Writer's Week, to talk about, An Uneasy Inheritance, my family and other radicals which is published by Allen and Unwin /Atlantic Books.

Oxford historian Peter Frankopan sits down in the studio with Phillip Adams to discuss his life, why we need to shift our Western-centric way of thinking and how history informs the moment of global chaos we find ourselves in.

Marwan Barghouti is the most popular Palestinian leader alive and has been hailed as their version of Nelson Mandela. Barghouti is seen as the only person who could bring the two factions of Fatah and Hamas together, to create a sustainable governing structure. But Barghouti has been in prison in Israel for murder for the last twenty-two years.Guests: Sophia Scott – Co-director, Tomorrow's FreedomSawsan Asfari – Producer, Tomorrow's FreedomTomorrow's Freedom is screening at the Palestinian Film Festival 

In 2012, a school bus crashed on a neglected road in the West Bank killing six children and one teacher. One of the children was five year old Milad Salama. Journalist and author Nathan Thrall spoke to his father Abed, and through his story he reveals the difficulties and dangers of daily life for Palestinians in the West Bank.Guest: Nathan Thrall, author of A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy (Hachette)For more information on Nathan Thrall's appearance at the Adelaide Writer's Festival click here. 

Opium had long been used sparingly in India and China as a valuable and useful medicine. When Britain's dependency on Chinese tea created a balance of trade problem, the East India company turbo-charged the opium industry and found an infinitely expanding market for opium in China.Guest: Amitav Ghosh, author of Smoke and Ashes: Opiums Hidden Histories (Hachette)

More headaches for Rishi Sunak after by-election loses and Tory MP Lee Anderson suspended. Also, chaos and the Gaza motion in the House of Commons last week. Naomi Smith: CEO, Best for Britain

Belly or oriental dancing can be traced back to the Ottoman empire, when it was performed by both women and men.Even now, it’s not uncommon to see men wiggling their hips in private, at weddings or other family functions. However, public performances have really been the domain of women until recently. Now male belly dancing is enjoying a comeback.Guests:Rachid AlexanderChris of Melbourne

Journalist and former LNL correspondent Margo Kingston returns to reflect on how the rise of Pauline Hanson's One Nation in the late 1990's ultimately led to the split in the Coalition which has now manifested as the number of Teals and other independents in the Australian parliament. She also looks at the poltical influence of "Advance" and what effect they may have on the Dunkley by-election. Guest: Margo Kingston, journalist and author. 

Andrew "Twiggy" Forrest has challenged political parties to step up their action on renewables, telling them to stop "bickering", but what's in it for him? How much will it cost to bring in the necessary reforms to higher education? And why cost-of-living is the only issue that counts in the Dunkley by-election, despite Advances attempts persuade voters otherwise.Guest: Laura Tingle, Chief Political Correspondent, 7.30

In the Middle Ages, the rich were expected to use their fortunes as ‘private barns of money’, helping local communities through plague, famine or war. Economic historian Guido Alfani asks whether 21st-century billionaires have a moral duty to contribute to the common good. 

The Moon, our closest celestial neighbour, is almost 400,000 kilometres away and only twelve people have walked on its surface to date. Yet, Rebecca Boyle believes the Moon is responsible for every giant leap humankind has ever made.

The new film Damage is the story of an Iraqi taxi driver Ali, and his elderly passenger Esther. Initially suspicious of each other they eventually form a bond. Filmmaker Madeleine Blackwell cast Ali Al Jenabi as the taxi driver after seeing him at a writers festival.Guests: Damage director Madeleine Blackwell and actor Ali Al Jenabi 

The populist Law and Justice party (PiS) was voted out in October 2023. What is the legacy of their 8 years in office and what lies ahead for Poland?Radoslaw Markowski: Professor of Political Science, Center for the Study of Democracy (Director), University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Warsaw.

Anand Patwardhan is an Indian documentary filmmaker whose films have explored the rise of religious fundamentalism, sectarianism and casteism in India. Others have been banned for investigating nuclear nationalism and unsustainable development. His most recent film reflects on his family’s role in fighting for freedom from Britain, and how Modi’s India is not the country his pro-unification family fought for.  Guest: Anand Patwardhan, Indian documentary filmmaker. His work can be found here

Bruce Shapiro unravels the possible consequences of the $355 million fine imposed on Donald Trump for fraud and looks at what the Democrats can learn from winning back the seat in Long Islands from Republican fraudster George Santos.Guest: Bruce Shapiro, contributing editor with The Nation magazine; Executive Director of the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia University. 

Someone who epitomises fearless reporting, is the Sydney Morning Herald’s chief investigative journalist Kate McClymont. Kate has been a journalist for nearly 40 years.  She’s exposed corruption at the highest levels of politics, she’s also lead investigations into financial conwoman Melissa Caddick, high profile neurosurgeon Charlie Teo, High Court Judge Dyson Heydon, and media personalities Don Burke and Alan Jones.  Kate is a winner of many writing awards, including the coveted Gold Walkley as well as recently being honoured with the Walkley for outstanding contribution to journalism.Guest: Kate McClymont,  SMH chief investigative reporter

The Opposition is claiming the government has lost control of its borders after the arrival of an asylum seeker boat in WA. Meanwhile a review of our naval ship capabilities is expected to recommend we increase the number of warships in our fleet. Guest: Laura Tingle, Chief Political Correspondent, 7.30

John Clarke, was one of New Zealand and Australia’s comedic geniuses. He died of a fatal heart attack while bushwalking with his wife  in 2017.   John’s eldest daughter Lorin recently  wrote a memoir about her family’s life, titled,  Would that be funny? Growing Up with John Clarke Guest: Lorin Clarke, writer

We tend to think of books and war as being at opposite ends of the spectrum. Books rank among humanity’s greatest inventions; war amongst its most terrible. Yet literary historian Andrew Pettegree argues that throughout history books and conflict have been deeply intertwined. 

Human Rights lawyer Jennifer Robinson has been representing Julian Assange for many years. Next week he is requesting leave to appeal against the decision to extradite him to the USA which was made over a year ago. If leave to appeal is denied he could face imminent extradition to a high security prison in the United States.Guest: Jennifer Robinson, human rights lawyer representing Julian Assange

These days, hitchhiking is discouraged by authorities and concerned parents alike, but in the 1930s it was seen as an opportunity for good manners, generosity and youthful adventure. 

The appointment of Sinn Fein leader Michelle O'Neil as First Minister in Northern Ireland is an historical moment for the party which was once called a terrorist organisation unfit to lead. So what does this augur a new step for the reunification movement?Guest: Fintan O’Toole, author and columnist for the Irish Times

The politics of the U-turn as Labour ditches a by-election candidate and walks back from a 28 billion pound green fund pledge. Meanwhile it's a week from hell for PM Rishi Sunak's Tories. 

At a time when thousands of languages are vanishing linguistics professor Caleb Everett explores how language shapes the way we think and feel about the world, as well as our perceptions of fundamental life experiences — and what linguistic diversity can tell us about human culture.Guest: Caleb Everett, Professor of Anthropology and Psychology at the University of Miami. Author of "A Myriad of Tongues — How Languages Reveal Differences in How We Think," published by Harvard University Press.

Shocking revelations about Home Affairs awarding contracts to companies with suspected links to drugs, firearms and bribery. Do we have double standards when it comes to white men's drinking habits? And will the government make an announcement about closing the gap on the anniversary of the apology?Guest: Laura Tingle, Chief Political Correspondent, 7.30

Sugandha Srivastav recounts the story of the fantastic sun ray machine and how its creator George Cove was allegedly kidnapped, setting back the development of solar panels for decades.

As the world transitions to green energy and electric vehicles, demand for metals like lithium, copper and nickel is on the rise. Mining for these metals in the past has resulted in environmental degradation and in many cases human rights abuses. Can we do better in the future?Guest: Christopher Pollon, Award winning journalist and author of Pitfall: The Race to Mine the World’s Most Vulnerable Places (University of Queensland Press)

A name synonymous with social welfare particularly when it comes to asylum seekers and refugees is Sr Brigid Arthur.Sr Brigid is the co-founder of the Brigidine Asylum Seeker Project which was set up in 2001 and has helped thousands of refugees since then.She’s been in court protecting the interests of indigenous children and teenage climate activistsSister Brigid recently received an Order of Australia, and at 89,  has no plans to retire. One might say she’s a rebel with a cause.Guest: Sr Brigid Arthur, Coordinator Brigidine Asylum Seeker Project

The International Court of Justice found that there was a plausible risk that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza. What should the global response be to the finding, and in particular what should Australia's response be? Could the defunding of UNRWA be seen as collective punishment?Guests: Regina Weiss, barrister and former prosecution trial lawyer at the International Criminal CourtBen Saul, Challis Chair of International Law, The University of Sydney, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counter-terrorism

Bruce Shapiro examines the arguments in the case brought by Colorado to the Supreme Court to have Donald Trump removed from the presidential primary ballot. Guest: Bruce Shapiro, contributing editor with The Nation magazine; Executive Director of the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia University. 

It's an incredibly dangerous time to be a journalist, whether you are reporting from one of the world's many conflict zones or from seemingly democratic countries. Three of the world's great press freedom advocates join Phillip Adams to discuss why this moment is so particularly challenging for journalists and how freedom of the press can be better protected. 

Professor Marcia Langton pays tribute to Dr Lowitja O’Donoghue AC CBE DSG and talks openly to Phillip Adams about why she feels the Voice referendum failed and where the conversation needs to move now. Guest: Marcia Langton - Professor of Australian Indigenous studies at the University of Melbourne. She was a Co-chair of the Voice Co-Design Senior Advisory Group, along with Professor Tom Calma. 

Laura Tingle looks at Nemesis - the Turnbull years, what Yang Hengjun's death sentence could mean for our relationship with China, and whether the Liberals will be snookered into supporting the stage three tax cuts legislation as parliament resumes.  Guest: Laura Tingle, Chief Political Correspondent, 7.30

Social historian Ebony Nilsson tells the remarkable life story of Vladimir Mishchenko who became Bill Marshall - an ASIO spy.

As prominent Australians call for a détente with China, former banker Satyajit Das looks at the history of de-globalisation and whether the so-called BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) could de-couple from the American dollar and create their own trade network. Guest: Satyajit Das, former banker and author of A Banquet of Consequences Reloaded and Fortunes Fool: Australia’s Choices.

 Digital natives are discovering the different reading experience that magazines provide.

More than a million people marched in Germany after an investigation revealed the far right party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) had secret meetings to discuss a “master plan” to “re-migrate” migrants to North Africa. Further revelations have shown how deep the Neo-Nazi networks are not just in the far right but also the mainstream parties of Germany.Guest: Ann-Katrin Müller, Political Editor, Der Spiegel

James Ward has been fascinated by the mundane for many years, and has written a book entirely about stationery, examining the stories behind the stuff we have littered across our desks and inside our pencil cases - from paperclips to post it notes and everything in between.Guest: James Ward, author of Adventures in Stationery – A journey through your pencil caseThis interview was originally broadcast on 5 May 2015.

For the first time in 50 years, two Australian psychiatrists have been given permission to treat two of their patients with psychedelic drugs.This follows the TGA approving the use in a clinical setting of MDMA and psilocybin.Guests:Dr Eli Kolter, Psychiatrist, Medical Director, Malvern Private HospitalClaire, Client 

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's battle with Tory rebels.The latest on his Rwanda Bill and his electoral prospects for 2024.Guest: Ian Dunt, Commentator and columnist for iNews  

A  trip to the Wessel Islands in north-east Arnhem land has uncovered the location where ancient African coins from the island of Kilwa in Tanzania were found in the 1940's. Since the story went viral in 2014, many people have tried to solve the mystery of how they got there.Guests:Mike Owen, Historian and Co-founder, PastMasters.Michael Hermes, Archaeologist and consultant to PastMasters

Crikey's political editor Bernard Keane talks about the ABC's explosive new political docuseries 'Nemesis', what Scott Morrison's political legacy might be and whether the Stage 3 tax cut reforms represent a breach of voters' trust. 

In an engaging address given at this year's Byron Writers Festival, pioneering historian Henry Reynolds covered living in Townsville in the 1960s, the importance of local history, the extraordinary racial gaps in Australia's early history telling, discovering the truths of frontier violence, his friendship with Eddie Mabo, and why the outcome of the Voice referendum will affect Australia's international standing. Archival audio from the ABC has been added to the recording of the talk.

Early in 1907 the French newspaper ‘Le Matin’ announced plans for the most audacious motor race yet. It was to be an epic test, not only of human endurance but also the technological capacity of the newly-invented car.

From elaborate gastro-diplomacy to famines orchestrated by the state, this is the history of modern Russia as you’ve never heard it before – told through the lens of food.Guest: Witold Szabłowski - Polish journalist and author of What's Cooking in the Kremlin: From Rasputin to Putin, How Russia Built an Empire with a Knife and Fork published by Penguin Random House

The war in Ukraine is about to head into it's third year. With military supplies in Ukraine dwindling and the future flow of Western aid far from guaranteed, is now the time to start thinking about a negotiated agreement? Guests:Anatol Lieven - Director of the Eurasia Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible StatecraftMichael Kimmage - Professor of History at the Catholic University of America and a Non-resident Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The Republican presidential primaries have begun, but as the list of candidates shrinks are they a waste of time? Is it inevitable that the race for the Presidency will be between Donald Trump and Joe Biden? How have both parties ended up with these candidates to offer to the US public?Guests: Bruce Shapiro, contributing editor with The Nation magazine; Executive Director of the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia University. James Fallows, journalist and author. His newsletter is called Breaking the News.

The relationship between politics and pubs started very early in Australia's colonial history as the pub provided a rare and welcoming place for workers to meet. This continued over the years as people continued to meet in pubs to discuss ideas and strategies to move Australia forward, including during the years of the Sydney Push.Guests: Alex Ettling, social historian and editor of Knocking the Top Off: A People's History of Alcohol in Australia (Interventions)Wendy Bacon, journalist, academic and activist and contributor of the essay 'Critical Drinking with the Sydney Push' 

The Prime Minister has called his MPs back to Canberra early to discuss a likely change to the promised stage three tax cuts as the government feels the pressure to address the cost of living crisis. But that's not the only crisis on its hands - there's a severe shortage of affordable housing, mortgage stress, the escalating cost of climate disasters and energy security risks thanks to global wars.Guests:Laura Tingle, Chief Political Correspondent, 7.30Sean Kelly, weekly columnist at The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age

In the year 68AD, the death of Emperor Nero precipitated a year of coups and civil war that saw four Caesars in succession rule the Roman Empire. But from the chaos emerged a 70-year era of unrivalled peace, power and prosperity known as the Pax Romana - when the Empire reached the heights of its predatory glory. Guest: Tom Holland, historian and author of Pax: War and Peace in Rome's Golden Age. Co-host of The Rest is History podcast. Originally broadcast 10th August, 2023

Wendy Harmer has lived a life full of 'firsts' - she was the first female news cadet in an all-male newsroom in Geelong, the first Australian female stand-up comedian and the first female co-host on a commercial radio breakfast program. But did Wendy herself ever feel like a trailblazer? Or was she always the little girl with the cleft palate, putting on a brave face? She reveals all in this broad-ranging interview with Phillip Adams. First broadcast 1 November 2023

Is there something innately human about a thirst for knowledge? Could the rise of 'smart' technology undermine our own ability to think? These are just some of the questions that award-winning writer Simon Winchester and Phillip Adams tackle in this conversation about Simon's new book Knowing What We Know: The Transmission of Knowledge: From Ancient Wisdom to Modern Magic.Originally broadcast on 24 August 2023

Perhaps the most provocative of punctuation marks, ! has long elicited the love and hate of writers. It's now under threat from the more expressive emoji and teachers who strive to stamp out social media speak in the classroom. Can ! be resuscitated and redeemed? Guest:Dr Florence Hazrat, researcher, wordsmith, podcaster. Author of An Admirable Point: A Brief History of the Exclamation Mark! Published in Australia by Allen & Unwin Originally broadcast on 14 February 2023

When the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary decided to crowdsource for the words to be included in the dictionary they probably did not expect murderers, lunatics and pornographers to respond or such a significant number of women. Over 3000 people contributed words and now their identities have been revealed.Guest: Sarah Ogilvie, author of The Dictionary People: The unsung heroes who created the Oxford English DictionaryThis program was originally broadcast on 12 September 2023

Historian Lee Jackson explores the history of Dickens’s tourism, looking at the first visitors who made the literary pilgrimage to London and whether the sites they visited were authentic.Originally broadcast on 7 September 2023

Whether it's the JFK assassination or 9/11, Americans have a strange tendency to believe dark forces are at work in their country. According to Colin Dickey, the United States was a land born in paranoia, and the fear of secret societies and conspiracies has been a defining feature of American life ever since. Originally broadcast on 7 September 2023

As well earning him multiple Walkley and Logie awards, the work done by investigative journalist Chris Masters PSM has arguably changed Australia, for the better. He speaks to Phillip Adams about his distinguished career, which culminated in his latest book Flawed Hero: Truth, lies and war crimes. First broadcast 13 July 2023

How did the trench coat morph from its practical military origins to fashion item and spy-wear? Delve into the humble pocket - and its contents - and you'll discover a wealth of social, cultural and political history. Fabrics are woven throughout human history, through Silk Road trading and the European lace wars to the hi-tech fibre of NASA spacesuits. Guests: Jane Tynan: author of Trench Coat Ariane Fennetauz  co-authored, with Barbara Burman, ‘The Artful pocket: a hidden history of women’s lives 1660-1900’Victoria Finlay:‘Fabric: the hidden history of the material world’. Kassia St Clair- ‘The Golden Thread: How fabric changed history’ 

The human urge to document and quantify has been long and varied. Multiple systems of measurement have been devised over thousands of years. But it’s a way to make sense of our world. So, too, is the desire to encapsulate what life is like at a given time, and store it safely somewhere for future populations to examine.  Keith Hoosten: author of Empire of the Sum: the rise and reign of the pocket calculatorJames Vincent: author of Beyond Measure: The Hidden History of MeasurementNick Yablon: author of The invention of the time capsule

What are the origins of the handshake? When did smiling become fashionable? And are we hard-wired to laugh? Guests: Ella Al-Shamahi, author of The Handshake: a gripping history (2021)Colin Jones, author of The Smile Revolution In Eighteenth Century Paris (2014)Jonathan Silvertown, author of The Comedy of Error (2020)

Did you know that every time you perform a Google search, you're using technology invented by a medieval polymath in Oxford? That's just one of the many interesting insights in Phillip Adams' conversations about how the index, the crossword and the encyclopedia were invented - and why they stuck. 

When did humanity start drawing borders? Why have nomadic cultures been so maligned? And how do states wield "soft power" through diplomatic gifts? Guests: James Crawford, author, The Edge of the PlainAnthony Sattin, author, Nomads: The wanderers who shaped our worldPaul Brummell, author, Diplomatic gifts: a history in 50 presents

The ability to swim, or not, has always been a social divider and often an indicator of cultural power. But there have been periods and places where those who considered themselves superior chose not to swim. And, why it wasn't until the mid-20th century that body hair came to be viewed as unhealthy, even filthy.Guests: Karen Eva Carr,  Associate Professor (Emerita) in History, Portland State University, Oregon and author of ‘Shifting currents: a world history of swimming’.  (Reaktion Books) Rebecca Herzig, Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies and Chair of the Program in Women and Gender Studies at Bates College, Maine.

Peter Wohlleben opened our eyes to the hidden social lives of trees. Now he makes the case that trees could be our climate saviours, if we let them.  First broadcast 25 May 2023

Phosphorus supports all life on Earth, yet we're exhausting our reserves of this finite resource at an unsustainable rate, while we allow it to overflow and pollute our waterways. As we inch towards 'peak phosphorus', it turns out the key to our future food security could reside in our own bladders and bowels. Guest: First broadcast 18 May 2023

In May 1853, thousands of visitors flocked to London Zoo to enter the world's first aquarium or "Fish House". The aquarium was a complete novelty - an opportunity to observe the lives of fish up close. The development of the aquarium would forever change our relationship with the marine world. Guest: John Simons, historian and academic, author of "Goldfish in the Parlour: The Victorian Craze for Marine Life"Originally broadcast 1st February, 2023

While the national dish often associated with Australia is the humble meat pie, other countries have national fare dating back centuries, which has the symbolic power of an anthem or flag. But are the national dishes that we travel the world to taste as iconic as we're told? Guest: Anya von Bremzen, award-winning food writer and author of NATIONAL DISH: Around the World in Search of Food, History, and the Meaning of Home published by Penguin Random House.Originally broadcast, September 11th 2023

Oxford historian and bestselling author of The Silk Roads Peter Frankopan joins Phillip Adams for a revelatory chat about how climate has contributed to the rise and fall of empires - and what this means for our future on a rapidly warming planet. First broadcast 9 March 2023

In no other Western country has ownership and control of the media been concentrated in the hands of as few people as it has in Australia. Sally Young tells the remarkable story of the media monsters that conglomerated their power and strengthened their influence in the mid-twentieth century.  First broadcast 13 June 2023

We tend to think that the exploration of psychoactive drugs began in the 1960s. But over a century before the explosion of the hippie counterculture, pioneering scientists and thinkers were using substances such as cocaine, hashish and nitrous oxide to unlock the hidden recesses of the mind. Guest: Mike Jay, author and cultural historianHis new book is 'Psychonauts: Drugs and the Making of the Modern Mind' (Yale University Press)Originally broadcast, 4th of May 2023

For over 40 years author Andrey Kurkov has kept a personal journal. His entries from the period leading up to Russia’s invasion and over the first five months of the war provide a glimpse into a country and a culture fighting for survival, against the odds.    Guest: Andrey Kurkov – Author and president of PEN Ukraine. His latest book is Diary of an Invasion published by Mountain Leopard Press.Originally broadcast 4th of May, 2023

In a radical new book, award-winning journalist Angela Saini explores the roots of gendered oppression and finds that male supremacy is a construct - and a far more recent one than we might imagine. Guest: Angela Saini - British science journalist, broadcaster and author. Her latest book is The Patriarchs: How men came to rule published by Harper Collins. Originally broadcast, April 27th 2023

Once dubbed the most powerful woman in the world, questions are being asked about whether former German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s pragmatic approach left Germany unprepared for dealing with energy transition and climate change.  But as a new documentary shows, her career was also marked by a politics of truth and integrity. ‘Merkel’ reveals how her life behind the wall in East Germany shaped her powerful stance on keeping Germany’s borders open to refugees and helped her stand strong against the alpha males she was up against.Guests:Eva Weber – Director and Producer of ‘Merkel’ and Company Director at Odd Girl Out Productions.Lizzie Gillett – Producer of ‘Merkel’ and Director of Feature Doc Department at Passion Pictures Films.MERKEL is screening nationally at the German Film Festival from 2 - 24 May. Originally broadcast, April 27th 2023

Stephen Coates reveals how a secret underground subculture of music lovers defied the censors in Cold War-era USSR, recording forbidden music onto old x-rays.Guest:Stephen Coates - composer, writer and music producer. Author of Bone Music (published by Strange Attractor / MIT Press) Check out the X-ray Audio Project hereMusic credits:St Louis Blues - Unknown (courtesy of Atila Csanyi)Emigre Tango - singer Serge Nikolsky (courtesy of Nikolai Rechetnik)All other tracks courtesy of Stephen Coates

The illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages are among the greatest works of European art and literature, fetching phenomenal sums at auction.  So who were the people who spent their lives among illuminated manuscripts over the last thousand years? Guest: Christopher de Hamel, Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge and former Fellow Librarian of the Parker Library. 'The Posthumous Papers of the Manuscripts Club’ is published by Penguin. Originally broadcast on the 6th of April, 2023.

The Whitlam era saw a great leap forward for women's rights in Australia, driven by Women’s Adviser Elizabeth Reid and a host of female activists, backed by a grass roots movement across the country. Their work is being recognised in a book released to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of Reid’s appointment.Guests:- Dr Elizabeth Reid, former Women's Adviser to Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, feminist development worker, academic and writer.- Michelle Arrow, Professor in Modern History at Macquarie University and editor of 'Women and Whitlam: Revisiting the Revolution,' published by New South Books.- Ranuka Tandan from the Whitlam Institute's Public Affairs Team.This story was originally broadcast on 13 April 2023.

Former Middle East diplomat Bob Bowker reflects on Australia’s role in the Arab world ahead of the twentieth anniversary of the Iraq war. He looks at how the impact of that war has played out in Middle East relations, the intractable problems between Israel and Palestine and how China is seeking to play a larger role in brokering issues between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Guest: Bob Bowker, retired diplomat, former Australian Ambassador to Jordan and Egypt and author of “Tomorrow there will be Apricots – an Australian diplomat in the Arab World,” published by Shawline.This story was originally broadcast on 03 March 2023.

The 19th of March 2003 marked the beginning of the invasion of Iraq by the United States and the 'Coalition of the Willing'. 20 years on, award-winning Iraqi journalist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad reflects on how the invasion transformed his country, and it's people. Guest: Ghaith Abdul-Ahad – award-winning journalist for the Guardian and author of A Stranger in Your Own City: Travels in the Middle East’s Long War published by Penguin Random House.This story was originally broadcast on 03 March 2023

Author Walter Marsh on the era that shaped young Rupert Murdoch - the radical who espoused socialism, kept a bust of Lenin in his uni accommodation and then went on to build his empire from 1950s Adelaide.  Guest: Walter Marsh, journalist and author of Young Rupert - the making of the Murdoch empire,  published by Scribe.This episode was originally broadcast on 03 August 2023.

New York has long had a problem with rat infestations, but rat numbers have recently reached historic highs. Can New York rid itself or rats, or is this an unwinnable war?Originally broadcast on 22nd March 2023Guest: Xochitl Gonzalez, staff writer for The Atlantic

James Fallows was the chief White House speechwriter for former president Jimmy Carter. He reflects on the life and legacy of this ‘disciplined, funny, enormously intelligent and deeply spiritual man’. Originally broadcast on the 1st of March, 2023.Guest: James Fallows - contributing writer at The Atlantic and author of the newsletter Breaking the News. You can read his piece in The Atlantic on Jimmy Carter here. 

In 2011 political historian and journalist Chris Wallace walked away from a biography she was writing on then Prime Minister, Julia Gillard. Wallace felt that amidst the toxic atmosphere of attacks on Gillard releasing the biography risked it being unfairly used against her and she didn't want any part of it. In her new book Political Lives, Wallace investigates how political biographies throughout Australia's history have impacted on our leaders — for good and ill.Guest: Dr Chris Wallace, author and political historian, Professor at the Faculty of Business, Government and Law, University of Canberra.Book:  Political lives: Australian prime ministers and their biographers, published by UNSW press.This story was originally broadcast on 09 February 2023. 

In a year when wars and the referendum on the voice all worked towards dividing us, there were moments of joy and unity. Our end of year panel digs deep to find them.AJ Lamarque, comedian, writer, producer and host of the Kweens of ComedyAlice Fraser, writer and podcast host of Tea with Alice and The Gargle.Carly Williams, national indigenous correspondent with the ABC and a Quandamooka woman from SE QueenslandJonathan Biggins, writer and performer in The Wharf Review currently showing at the Seymour Centre

When award-winning writer and broadcaster Selina Mills started to lose her sight, she noticed that people started to treat her differently. It caused her to explore where the stigma around blindness originates and how it persists in Western culture to this day.

Writer Andrew Leland is gradually losing his sight as a result of a progressive eye disease called retinitis pigmentosa. He discusses what it's like to join - but not feel entirely a part of - the blind community and what it actually means to be blind.

‘It takes a man or woman of great moral courage…to dare the risk of being himself or herself all the time’ – so said Bee Miles, the Sydney woman who claimed she was not anti-social, but anti the social order of 1920’s Australia. Her refusal to conform saw the intellectual radical arrested more than 300 times and be locked up in at least seven psychiatric hospitals.Guests:Rose Ellis - author of ‘Bee Miles - Australia's famous bohemian rebel, and the untold story behind the legend’, published by Allen and Unwin.James Ricketson, film-maker and former journalist.

Bruce Shapiro reflects on the year that was in American politics, and looks ahead to a fateful election year in 2024. Guest: Bruce Shapiro, contributing editor with The Nation magazine; Executive Director of the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia University.  

As we celebrate 100 years of radio in Australia, radio historians Dr Virginia Madsen and Professor Jock Given look back at the early days of wireless, how Radio National was born, and at the golden moments in the history of our favourite medium. 

Laura Tingle and author and columnist Niki Sava look back on the key political events of 2023, including the Voice referendum loss, the cost of living crisis and scandals like Robodebt and PWC. Guests: Laura Tingle, Chief Political Correspondent, 7.30Niki Savva, author and columnist.

Jerrie Cobb was the first woman selected to join Mercury 13, an elite  group of women pilots being trained as astronauts in 1960. When film maker Mary Haverstick decided to make a feature film about Jerrie, she soon discovered that Jerrie Cobb seemed to have another identity - June Cobb who was a CIA spy involved in assassination attempts in Cuba and the Congo. She may even have played a role in the assassination of JFK.Guest: Mary Haverstick, film maker and author of "A Woman I Know: female spies, double identities, and a new story of the Kennedy assassination” (Scribe)

Discussions of climate change tend to focus on the threats to human societies and economies. But in wild nature, countless species are already in rapid decline, ill-equipped to deal with their rapidly changing realities. Guest: Adam Welz, journalist and author, The End of Eden: Wild Nature in the Age of Climate Breakdown. 

Marcus Aurelius the philosopher, the mad Caligula, the monster Nero. After a couple of thousand years, we still remember the names of many Roman emperors. But why have some been forgotten? And how accurate are the stories that survive?Guest: Mary Beard, author of ‘Emperors of Rome: ruling the ancient roman world’, published by Allen & Unwin.

The Gunditjmara people of Western Victoria have just been recognised with a UNESCO award for their work safeguarding and maintaining their country at Budj Bim cultural heritage site. It's the culmination of years of work campaigning for the right of Indigenous people to care for their own country and for funding the work of Indigenous Rangers. Budj Bim is now just one of around 80 Indigenous Protected Areas covering a vast amount of Australian land.Guests:  Denis Rose, Gunditjmara Traditional Owner and Chair, Country Needs People and Patrick O’Leary, CEO and Founding Director of Country Needs People. 

There is so much more to eyeliner, or 'kohl', than meets the eye. As journalist Zahra Hankir explains, for centuries its been a symbol of power and resistance, as well as female and male beauty. 

COP28 kicks off in Dubai later this week, after a year of record-breaking extreme temperatures. Our Pacific neighbours are already bearing the brunt of the effects, and Australia is hoping to co-host COP31 with Pacific nations in 2036. So what are Pacific Islanders hoping to see the Australian government, and others, commit to at the UN climate talks?  Joseph Sikulu and Dr Wesley Morgan join us to discuss.

Ian Dunt recaps an eventful year in UK politics. Meanwhile, the Sunak government's plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda has been ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court. Plus, the latest economic figures show that Britons are enduring the worst cost of living crisis in decades.Guest: Ian Dunt, columnist with the "i" newspaper

Unlike the painting collections of art galleries, the State Library of NSW collection is based on the stories the pictures tell, rather than their aesthetic value. Guests: Richard Neville and Rachel Franks, both from the State Library, co-editors of 'Reading the Rooms: behind the paintings of the State Library of NSW’  (NewSouth)

Laura Tingle on whether sacked Home Affairs Secretary Mike Pezzullo might get his contract paid out, Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek's Murray-Darling deal and the government's gas industry code gets the go-ahead.Guest: Laura Tingle, Chief Political Correspondent, 7.30

Moral philosopher Raimond Gaita believes that when we have love for the world there is still hope. He still believes we can find a shared sense of humanity, but we need to listen hard to each other and have conversations which we accept will have an unknown outcome.Guest: Philosopher and author of "Justice and Hope: Essays, Lectures and Other Writings” edited by Scott Stephens Melbourne University Press

In the United States segregating class rooms is being offered once again, but now it's called 'progressive separatism' - an ideology driven by notions of intersectionality and post-colonialism. But author Yascha Mounk argues that identity politics has become a zero-sum-game, making it harder to achieve a fairer society. Guest: Yascha Mounk, author of “The Identity Trap: a story of ideas and power in our times” published by Penguin.

At the height of his career, Charlie Chaplin was the most famous man in the world, but he was not impervious to the Red Scare. Biographer Scott Eyman revisits the life of Charlie Chaplin and how he became a victim of a particular brand of American paranoia. 

The real life stories of a cast of characters all linked together by the experience of transportation to the penal colony of NSW.Jim Haynes:  author of Heroes, Rebels and Radicals of Convict Australia  (Allen&Unwin)

The Hamas terror attack on the 7th of October seemed to spell the simultaneous downfall of Israel’s right-wing president Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as the possibility of a two-state solution. Tel Aviv-based political scientist Dr Dahlia Scheindlin reflects on what’s currently happening in Israeli politics and the possibility now of a comprehensive peaceful resolution to the conflict.

In this US update with Bruce Shapiro, we remember the 'Steel magnolia', former first lady Rosalynn Carter and her dedication to making life better for others. Plus, we look at why a spate of recent state and local elections bodes well for Biden, while the Israel-Gaza war does not.

It was the murder that shocked the world and, for decades, what happened to Congolese independence leader and prime minister Patrice Lumumba remained shrouded in mystery. Now, Stuart Reid has discovered that the CIA - and the United Nations - played a bigger role in events in the Congo than we've previously believed. 

China has been talking up its intention to broker peace between Israel and Gaza in it role as President of the UN Security Council, but how much clout does it really have in the Middle-East? Guests: Einar Tangen, Senior Fellow of Taihe Institute.Julien Barnes-Dacey, MENA programme director at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

A sonar incident in the South China Sea strains relations with China. Plus, the rush to push through laws after the High Court's ruling on indefinite detention.Guest: Laura Tingle, Chief Political Correspondent, 7.30

Richard Flanagan sits down with Phillip to talk about his new book Question Seven which explores the connections between HG Wells, Hiroshima, his father's experience as a prisoner of war and his own existence. He also reflects on the questions that both authors and readers should be asking.Guest: Richard Flanagan, author of Question Seven (Penguin Random House) 

In the year 313 BC, on a stretch of arid Egyptian coast, Alexander the Great founded the city that still bears his name: Alexandria.  In the centuries that followed, the city emerged as a thriving, liberal centre for world trade, culture, literature and science at the crossroads of three continents. Guest: Professor Islam Issa, author, Alexandria: the city that changed the world.

Start with a photo of an unknown face, then run it through an algorithm linked to a massive data base with millions of facial images scraped from the internet and social media and you’d be concerned and surprised at just how much personal information the system can dig up.Kashmir Hill: Technology Reporter, the New York Times and author of Your face belongs to us: the secretive startup dismantling your privacy  (Simon & Schuster)

Yepoka Yeebo tells the jaw-dropping true story of John Ackah Blay-Miezah, an audacious Ghanaian con-man that pulled off one of the 20th century's longest-running and most spectacular frauds.

In her role as the Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese investigates human rights violations by both Israeli and Palestinian authorities in the Palestinian Occupied Territories. She questions whether Israel has the right defend itself against Hamas in the way that it has according to international law and argues passionately for the humanisation of all the victims of the conflict.Guest: Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories

In a surprise turn of events, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak decided to clean house, announcing a big cabinet reshuffle in which Suella Braverman was replaced as home secretary and former prime minister David Cameron was welcomed back, as foreign secretary. Guest: Ian Dunt - Columnist with the “i” newspaper.

Sean Turnell was an academic whose expertise in the economy of Myanmar gained the attention of the pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi while she was still in detention. When she was released she called on Sean to join her team to reform the economy of Myanmar. Six years later he was arrested and thrown in jail for 650 days. Now one year on since his release, he tells the story of his time in some of the most notorious jails in Myanmar.Guest: Sean Turnell, Author of An Unlikely Prisoner (Penguin Random House) Senior Fellow at the Lowy Institute and  Honorary Professor at Macquarie University 

Foreign Minister Penny Wong is being criticised by both pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel lobbyists for her comment that there should be 'steps towards' a ceasefire. With Laura Tingle

On September 29 1923, the British Empire reached its geographical zenith, covering a quarter of the world and nearly 500 million people. But in spite of Britain’s triumphalism, Matthew Parker discovers a ruling power be-set by debt and doubt, and on the ground, the sounds of shackles being shrugged off. Guest:  Matthew Parker, author of ‘One Fine Day – 29 September 1923 – Britain’s Empire on the Brink’, published by Abacus Books. 

Despite decrying jazz and swing as 'degenerate music', Reich Minister for Propaganda Joseph Goebbels knew the power of music and radio to capture hearts and minds. He put together his own swing band, which re-wrote the lyrics of popular tunes as Nazi propaganda. Journalist Scott Simon tells the story. 

The Pacific Islands Forum is meeting in Rarotonga this year, and there are more non-Pacific guests than ever before. The Pacific Leaders are trying to focus on Pacific issues like climate change and seabed mining rather than getting sidetracked by external issues like the war between Israel and Gaza. Guest: Tess Newton-Cain, Project Leader at the Pacific Hub at Griffith University in Queensland

In 1943 John F. Kennedy and crew are left for dead after their boat is rammed by a Japanese destroyer. Fortunately for them, Australian coast watcher Reg Evans was there to help. Brett Mason:  Author of  Saving Lieutenant Kennedy The heroic story of the Australian who helped rescue JFK

From 2010 to 2020, more people took part in protests than at any other point in human history. From the Arab Spring, to Hong Kong's student demonstrations - many of these movements failed to achieve their ends. Why has success been so elusive? Guest: Vincent Bevins, journalist and author, "If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution", Hachette

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken makes a desperate diplomatic mission to the Middle East. Meanwhile, Joe Biden is losing ground to Donald Trump in a new poll of swing states, one year out from the general election.  Guest: Bruce Shapiro, contributing editor with The Nation magazine; Executive Director of the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia University

A vegan environmental scientist journeys to Antarctica, and finds herself surprisingly moved by the stories of the young Scottish whalers of the 20th century, even though they contributed to  the decimation of the whale population in the region.  Guest: Sandy Winterbottom, former environmental science academic. Author of 'The Two-Headed Whale: Life, Loss and the Tangled Legacy of Whaling in the Antarctic' (Greystone Books)

The Pacific region was a nuclear testing ground for more than 50 years until the last test by the French in 1996. But now thirty years on people are still suffering high rates of cancer and seeking reparations. And there are concerns that the region will again become a nuclear dumping ground. Guest: Nic Maclellan, correspondent for Islands Business and author of Grappling with the Bomb: a history of British nuclear testing in Kiribati.

Anthony Albanese meets with China President Xi Jinping, Scott Morrison heads to Israel and Treasurer Jim Chalmers says we're unlikely to reach our net-zero emissions target with a review of our industry policy.  Guest: Laura Tingle, Chief Political Correspondent, 7.30

Edward Brooke-Hitching, LNL’s special correspondent in oddities, ponders how love has been depicted through the ages. His new book is ‘Love: A Curious History in 50 Objects’ (published by Simon & Schuster)  

In a speculative biography, Kiera Lindsey brings to life the story of Adelaide Ironside - an outstanding yet largely forgotten colonial artist. Kiera Lindsey: Author of Wild Love: the ambitions of Adelaide Ironside the first Australian artist to astonish the world Advocate, the History Trust of South Australia

Wendy Harmer has lived a life full of 'firsts' - she was the first female news cadet in an all-male newsroom in Geelong, the first Australian female stand-up comedian and the first female co-host on a commercial radio breakfast program. But did Wendy herself ever feel like a trailblazer? Or was she always the little girl with the cleft palate, putting on a brave face? She reveals all in this broad-ranging interview with Phillip Adams. 

There is evidence that people have been using steam baths for thousands of years and across many countries. They are now having a renaissance along with cold water swimming. What is it about saunas that hs made them so enduring and so addictive. Guest: Emma O'Kelly, journalist and author of Sauna: The Power of Deep Heat photographed by Maya Astikainen and published by Welbeck

A severe marine heatwave is expected to peak this December-February, and could affect southern Australian fisheries, tourism and biodiversity. Most at risk is the Great Southern Reef,  which wraps around the southern half of Australia. It is more economically valuable than the Great Barrier Reef, and yet receives less than 1% of the funding. With Scott Bennett,  marine ecologist 

Both the Conservatives and the Labour Party are facing internal turmoil as an increasing number of MPs call for a ceasefire in Gaza. Plus Rishi's report card - how the Sunak government has performed in its first year.  Guest: Naomi Smith, CEO, Best for Britain. 

Behind the booming global demand for avocados is an increasingly violent competition to control this fruit and the resources needed to produce it. Journalist Alex Sammon travelled to the frontlines of this conflict in the Mexican state of Michoacán to report on the true cost of our avocado toast. 

There are a huge number of think tanks across the globe and across the political spectrum. But less well known is an organisation committed to free market policies that has been supporting think tanks with similar ideologies. It is called the Atlas Network and it has a long and fascinating history and an equally interesting present with connections to the No Campaign to the Voice to Parliament.  Guest: Dr Jeremy Walker, author of More Heat than Life: the Tangled Roots of Ecology, Energy and Economics (Palgrave) and this article on the connection between the Atlas Network and the Voice referendum.

Why Paul Keating wouldn't sign the ex-prime ministers' letter on Israel, Anthony Albanese takes the Assange case and sureties of Australian friendship to the US while treading carefully not to offend China. Guest: Laura Tingle, Chief Political Correspondent, 7.30

Artist and naturalist Maria Sybilla Merian was the first to identify metamorphosis and directly link the lives of insects and plants. She  went from Amsterdam to South America to live with a doomsday cult. Peter the Great, the Tsar of Russia, was a big fan of her work. Historical novelist Melissa Ashley has been researching her life and work

American essayist and novelist Phil Klay, a former Marine, wrestles with the Israel and Gaza conflict, and other wars the US has been involved in the past two decades. He considers the decision-making, and the legacies. 

The newspapers of 19th Century Melbourne paint a colourful and at times bizarre picture of the city: from collapsing Gold Rush era buildings, to exploding sewers, to runaway horses, roaming "larrikins", and a moral panic over discarded orange-peels.  Guest: Robyn Annear, author, "Corners of Melbourne: The great orange-peel panic and other stories from the streets", Text

Ever since humans first encountered dust, they have tried to contain it with varying degrees of success. Jay Owens tells the stories of the coal dust that covered the cities of the 18th century, the dust created by emptying lakes across the globe and even the mysterious dust found under the couch. She also asks the important question - is there such a thing as good dust? Jay Owens, author  Dust: The Modern World in a Trillion Particles published by Hachette

More than just well-meaning and helpful, these volunteers are credited with over half of all species records in Australia’s national biodiversity database. What do they do and what difference do they make to our understanding and management of at risk and threatened species?

Atlantic staff writer Anne Applebaum discusses the surprising results of Poland's recent parliamentary elections, in which the populist Law and Justice Party failed to secure a new mandate. 

US President Joe Biden is caught in a difficult balancing act, attempting to show support for Israel while also trying to urge restraint. Meanwhile, the chaos in Congress continues, with no clear prospect of a new speaker to replace Rep. Kevin McCarthy.

Often misjudged as a second-class English dialect, Jamaican is cementing itself as the Caribbean nation's foremost tongue - though you won't hear it in the nation's courts. 

Kenyan authorities were shocked to discover the bodies of some 400 people, many emaciated with some showing signs of abuse. 

The Prime Minister has a busy few weeks of international travel ahead, first visiting the United States to discuss AUKUS and energy, before a historic trip to Beijing to meet with President Xi.  Guest: Laura Tingle, chief political correspondent, 7.30

Silk has long been coveted for its beauty, but it also one of the strongest biological materials ever known. Silk was used to make the first bulletproof vest more than a century ago—but Dr Aarathi Prasad says scientists have barely begun to tap its potential.

1848 was a unique moment in history when a revolutionary wave unfurled across Europe. The renowned Australian historian Christopher Clark discusses why parallel political tumults spread like brush fire, leading to momentous changes that continue to shape our world today.

Melbourne's Yarra River is often derided as "the river that flows upside-down" due to its strong muddy colour. But once upon a time, this ancient river ran clear. Today, the Yarra remains a viable and important habitat for dozens of native species, as humans work to undo centuries of damage.  Guest: Harry Saddler, author, Clear Flowing Yarra

When Rory Stewart became a Conservative MP in 2010, he  found Westminster full of people who were not serious about policy, but rather obsessed with “personalities, promotion and power”. Despite that he managed to achieve some meaningful policy changes before being ejected from the party by Boris Johnson over Brexit. Guest: Rory Stewart, author of Politics on the Edge: A memoir from within (Penguin Random House) and co-host of The Rest is Politics

How does Australia fare when it comes to promoting its soft power?

The tropical city-state of Singapore already deals with hot and humid conditions all year round, but rapid urbanisation over the past half-century has made the city even hotter. Now, government and researchers are pursuing novel ways to cool down its citizens, as the planet warms.  Guests: Dr. Winston Chow, Associate Professor in Urban Climate, Singapore Management University.    Dr. Sebastian Pfautsch, Associate Professor Urban Planning and Management, Western Sydney University  

Since before the days of the druids, humans have been connected to oak trees, for their acorns, their wood, their shelter and their magic. Over a period of two years James Canton spent a lot of time in the company of oak trees, and one in particular known as the Honywood Oak. The Honywood Oak is estimated to be 800 years old, and as he spent time with the ancient oak, he began to understand the mystical as well as practical relationship that humans have with oak trees. Guest: James Canton, author of The Oak Papers. Originally Broadcast on 10 September 2020.

The nation has rejected constitutional recognition of First Nations people via an Indigenous Voice to Parliament in Australia's first referendum of this century. What does the result mean for the future of reconciliation?  Guests:  Laura Tingle, chief political correspondent, 7.30 John Paul Janke, co-host of The Point, NITV & SBS

Witch trials sound as antiquated as the three Weird Sisters in ‘Macbeth.’ But witches, most of them women, are still being persecuted and killed today.

Pulitzer-winning science journalist Ed Yong talks about why he chose career as a science communicator and why we should care about how animals experience the world and how we are interfering with it. 

The relationship between Wangal leader Bennelong and Captain Arthur Phillip was significant for the early years of the colony of NSW. A new twin biography of the two men looks at what they achieved together and significantly why they did not sign a treaty on their fateful trip to England. Guest: Kate Fullagar, author of Bennelong and Phillip: A History Unravelled (Simon and Schuster)

Australia's proud history with the eight hour day looms large in the collective imagination, but the campaign and the methods that won it have not been fully understood. Meanwhile, the pressures of work impinging on 'life' are just as present now. With political historian Sean Scalmer

Born in Adelaide in 1910, Lorraine Murray lived a life of constant reinvention — a rebel teenage student in Armidale, a young mistress to a Japanese diplomat, a sex worker in Shanghai, a counter-intelligence informant in Australia, and later in life, a London society matron. A new book uncovers the hidden life of this extraordinary woman.  Guest: Nick Hordern, author "Shanghai Demimondaine"

While those seeking asylum increasingly meet harsh border policies, if you can afford to pay, there are a growing number of states willing to sell their citizenship and the privileges it brings. Kristin Surak has conducted the first on-the-ground investigation of the lucrative trade in “golden passports” and what it reveals about the dark side of capitalist globalisation.

The US response to Hamas attacks on Israel, the acting House Speaker, Trump's fraud case and RFK Jnr's Presidential bid as an independent. Brendon O’Connor: Professor of US Politics and US Foreign Relations, United States Studies Centre, University  of Sydney.

France began sending convicts to New Caledonia just as Australia was winding up its convict transportation, in the 1850s and 60s. An unusual friendship developed between a French speaking Australian woman and a French convict poet. With historian Briony Neilson

Falling consumer prices, a property sector on the edge of collapse, ageing workers and unemployed youth, plus the after-effects of COVID have hampered China's economy. What does it all mean for Australia and the rest of the world? GUEST: Simon Cox, China economics editor at the Economist, based in Hong Kong

Laura Tingle reflects on the tone of the Voice to Parliament debate, less than a week out from referendum day.  Guest: Laura Tingle, Chief political correspondent, 7.30

Michael Palin has long been a diarist - as well as a comedian, writer, traveller and actor - and so when he found the war diaries of his Great Uncle Harry, he wanted to find out more about the man that his family never discussed. The result is a moving book about a restless young man who survived Gallipoli but died in the Battle of the Somme. Guest: Michael Palin author of Great Uncle Harry: A Tale of War and Empire (Penguin Random House)

Incels. Anti-vaxxers. Neo-Nazis… Once, these radical groups existed on the far-flung fringes of society. Now their ideas are moving out of the shadows and seeping into mainstream culture.

In 2019, writer Elizabeth Rush joined an expedition to Thwaites Glacier, one of the world's most important, and most vulnerable, glaciers. In taking this journey she also grappled with whether or not she should bring a child into this rapidly changing world. 

California's iconic redwood forests attract millions of visitors each year, but just four per cent of the ancient forests remain standing today. From the 1850s, the forest was logged to near oblivion, concealed by one of the most egregious "greenwashing" campaigns in US history.  Guest: Greg King, author, "The Ghost Forest: Racists, Radicals and Real Estate in the California Redwoods"

It's official. Republican Kevin McCarthy has become the first house speaker in US history to be ousted. How did it come to this? And what does it mean that the second most important job in the US government is currently vacant, with no one putting their hand up to fill it? Bruce Shapiro is here to explain all. 

Over 200 years ago, in the midst of the Industrial Revolution, textile workers in England formed the original "Luddite" rebellion, raiding factories at night to destroy the machines threatening their livelihoods. Centuries later, is another Luddite uprising brewing against artificial intelligence?  Guest: Brian Merchant, author 'Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion against Big Tech'

When the US government tested the first nuclear bomb in New Mexico in July 1945, none of the nearby residents were warned or evacuated before or after the test. Now new research shows that the fallout from what became known as the Trinity test reached 46 states as well as Canada and Mexico. Families of those affected are still fighting for compensation. Guest: Lesley Blume, journalist and author of Fallout: The Hiroshima Coverup and the Reporter Who Revealed it to the World.

Ian Dunt breaks down another eventful fortnight in Old Blighty.

In an engaging address given at this year's Byron Writers Festival, pioneering historian Henry Reynolds covered living in Townsville in the 1960s, the importance of local history, the extraordinary racial gaps in Australia's early history telling, discovering the truths of frontier violence, his friendship with Eddie Mabo, and why the outcome of the Voice referendum will affect Australia's international standing. Archival audio from the ABC has been added to the recording of the talk.

Fake Heroes: Ten False Icons and How They Altered the Course of History.” Published by Welbeck.

In South Africa,  the lion-breeding industry continues to produce lions for tourists to shoot, and for bones to send to Asia as 'tiger' bones. Guest: Adam Welz, South African writer, photographer, and filmmaker based in Cape Town 

In 1926 a ship set sail from New York on a world cruise, with hundreds of college students on board.  It was a grand educational experiment, called ‘The Floating University'. Guest: Historian and author Tamson Pietsch

Starting with the Bolshevik Revolution, world-leading intelligence historian Calder Walton takes us through one hundred years of espionage, subversion and sabotage between East and West, with some important lessons for our future interactions with China. 

The Yirrkala Bark Petitions have helped pave the way for 60 years of civil rights and native title struggles up to and including the Voice referendum. But how well is their legacy understood? Guest: Professor Clare Wright, Professor of History, La Trobe University.

In late August, authorities in Hong Kong raided the home of Andrew Chan - the founder of a Cantonese language advocacy group, demanding he remove materials from his website. Chan has since dissolved the group entirely. This latest incident has raised concerns about the efforts of the Chinese government to suppress minority languages and assert the supremacy of Mandarin.  Guest: Gina Anne Tam, Associate Professor in History, Trinity University

Just as the writer's strike comes to an end after 146 days, the Auto-Workers Union has asked members to down tools - a move which will wreak havoc on the US automotive industry. 

Prolific African American visual artist and musician Lonnie Holley joins Phillip Adams in the studio to discuss his turbulent childhood and how he turns pain into art. 

Most of our internet comes to us through garden hose-size cables on the bottom of the sea. But geopolitical games are being played, especially between the US and China. With Joe Brock and Lane Burdette

The government wants to allow pensioners working part-time and casual hours to earn more, as part of reforms proposed in its employment white paper.  And Mike Pezzullo steps aside as Home Affairs Secretary amid political texting allegations. 

The human history of counting involves everything from baboon bones, body parts and clay tokens to a mechanical calculator invented by a famous French philosopher in the 17th century.  

Is capitalism dead? As big tech's influence and control on the markets and all our lives continues to grow, could it be that capitalism has been replaced by technofeudalism. Yanis Varoufakis explains how we all became cloud serfs providing our data for free.  Guest: Yanis Varoufakis, former Minister for Finance in Greece and author of Technofeudalism: What killed Capitalism (Penguin Random House)

When Neil Armstrong landed on the Moon and took his ‘giant leap for mankind’, women were banned from NASA’s astronaut corps altogether. But in 1978, NASA finally went on a diversity drive and recruited six female trailblazers.

After spending fifty years reporting on and studying the Middle East, Robert D. Kaplan makes the provocative argument that Western observers need to stop projecting liberal values onto this part of the world, and engage with the increasingly geo-strategically important region in a new way. 

There's never a quiet week in Old Blighty!

In an era where every day seems to bring a fresh crisis, a new book looks at the subtle importance of ‘cheerfulness’, and how it has been a crucial yet overlooked part of the Western canon, spanning from the plays of Shakespeare to the songs of Louis Armstrong. Timothy Hampton, Professor of Comparative Literature and French at the University of California at Berkeley. Author of Cheerfulness: A Literary and Cultural History, published by Princeton University Press. 

Israel is effectively subsidising a new PNG embassy in Jerusalem - a controversial location for any embassy. The PNG Prime Minister, James Marape, says his nation's commitment to Christianity is one reason he supports Israel. Sean Jacobs, PNG-born, Brisbane-based writer and commentator on Pacific affairs. Daniel Seidemann, Israeli attorney and analyst

Australians in general do not like eating offal. Yet, all over the world – offal is commonplace in everyday food culture. Writer Sheila Ngọc Phạm advocates for a more honest approach to meat eating in Australia - informed by intercultural exchange.  

The plan to build a national nuclear waste facility at Kimba in South Australia was the third plan of its kind to be scrapped. With nuclear waste accruing around the country and the prospect of more to come as a result of the AUKUS pact, is there a way forward? Guests: Ian Lowe - Emeritus Professor, School of Environment and Science, Griffith University. Author of Long Half-life: The Nuclear Industry in Australia  Dr Jessica Urwin - Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the ANU’s Centre for Environmental History. 

The Yes and No campaigns are ramping up, with less than four weeks to go until referendum day. Plus, the government rebukes the Opposition's proposal to replace ageing coal-fired power stations with nuclear energy.  Guest: Amy Remeikis, political reporter, Guardian Australia

When award-winning writer and broadcaster Selina Mills started to lose her sight, she noticed that people started to treat her differently. It caused her to explore where the stigma around blindness originates and how it persists in Western culture to this day.  Guest: Selina Mills is a writer and broadcaster, and the author of Life Unseen: A Story of Blindness published by Bloomsbury.

Writer Andrew Leland is gradually losing his sight as a result of a progressive eye disease called retinitis pigmentosa. He discusses what it's like to join - but not feel entirely a part of - the blind community and what it actually means to be blind.

When the US military helicopter crashed on the Tiwi Islands last month, killing three Marines,  it wasn’t the first time a foreign military aircraft had gone down there. In WW2, a Japanese fighter pilot was captured by Tiwis and became Australia's first Japanese POW. It's just one of many under-appreciated stories of the Tiwi past. Historians Mavis Kerinaiua and Laura Rademaker have co-authored 'Tiwi Story: turning history downside up' (NewSouth)

On September 11th 1973, a Washington-backed military junta headed by general Augusto Pinochet violently overthrew the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende.  Australia's intelligence agency ASIS was stationed in Santiago at the time, but 50 years on, Canberra refuses to release key classified documents.  Guest: Rodrigo Acuña, independent journalist covering Latin America

While the debate about how an indigenous Voice to parliament would operate here in Australia, on the other side of the world in Norway, the indigenous Sami population have had a Voice in place for over 30 years.  Guest Dateline presenter Karla Grant travelled to Norway to see how it works - and how it might compare to the Voice currently being considered here in Australia.  GUEST: Karla Grant, journalist and proud Western Arrernte woman

When the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary decided to crowdsource for the words to be included in the dictionary they probably did not expect murderers, lunatics and pornographers to respond or such a significant number of women. Over 3000 people contributed words and now their identities have been revealed. Guest: Sarah Ogilvie, author of The Dictionary People: The unsung heroes who created the Oxford English Dictionary

A diplomatic breakthrough with Vietnam, as President Joe Biden visits Hanoi. Plus, a delicate deal with Iran to liberate five Americans. And are the Republicans poised to replace their Senate leader, Mitch McConnell? Guest: Bruce Shapiro, Contributing editor with The Nation magazine; Executive Director of the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia University.   

While the national dish often associated with Australia is the humble meat pie, other countries have national fare dating back centuries, which has the symbolic power of an anthem or flag. But are the national dishes that we travel the world to taste as iconic as we're told?  Guest: Anya von Bremzen, award-winning food writer and author of NATIONAL DISH: Around the World in Search of Food, History, and the Meaning of Home published by Penguin Random House.

While the rest of the world hypes up China and US conflict over Taiwan, journalist Brian Hoie says, Taiwanese people have a more nuanced view, and want the reporting to ease off, to avoid provoking an attack.

The government reaches a deal with the Greens to progress their housing bill. Plus, what does the Qantas and Qatar Airways saga say about competition (or a lack thereof) in Australia's economy?   Guest: Bernard Keane, political editor, Crikey

Historian Lee Jackson explores the history of Dickens’s tourism, looking at the first visitors who made the literary pilgrimage to London and whether the sites they visited were authentic.

Whether it's the JFK assassination or 9/11, Americans have a strange tendency to believe dark forces are at work in their country. According to Colin Dickey, the United States was a land born in paranoia, and the fear of secret societies and conspiracies has been a defining feature of American life ever since. 

Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb talks about his recent expedition to recover the first meteor fragments from outside our solar system, and his belief that the future of humanity rests on our ability to become a truly ‘interstellar’ species.

The decline of local and regional news only accelerated during the pandemic, turning more and more communities into "news deserts". Journalism is an invaluable service in isolated and disadvantaged areas, particularly when times are tough. But is it possible to buck the trend and revive these vanishing outlets - both here in Australia and in North America?  Guests: Professor Kristy Hess, Deakin University Professor April Lindgren, Toronto Metropolitan University Steven Waldman, President of Rebuild Local News, USA

115 years ago, a poem was published in The Spectator that would become an unofficial anthem of Australia. Dorothea Mackellar was the woman behind the iconic lines “I love a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains…” yet whilst we can almost all recite her lines, we know very little about the poet’s life. Until now…  Guest: Deborah Fitzgerald – journalist and author of Her Sunburnt Country: The Extraordinary Literary Life of Dorothea Mackellar published by Simon & Schuster. Please note: The recording of Dorothea reading 'My Country' is the property of The Estate of Dorothea Mackellar. 

Indonesia and Australia have key elements in common: they are big coal exporters needing to transition from that energy. And between them, they have the most important resources needed for electric vehicle batteries. Working together they could, it is argued, potentially supply most of Asia with EV batteries. Andrew Hudson and Ruddy Gobel from the Centre for Policy Development

Can Keir Starmer's reworked shadow cabinet topple Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives? 

Samuel Goldbloom was a peace activist all his life. He was also a secret member of the communist party who held on to his faith in communism long after many of his comrades left. His activism and faith in communism had a huge impact on his family including his eldest daughter Sandra who has written a memoir about their turbulent relationship. Guest: Sandra Goldbloom Zurbo, author of My Father's Shadow published by Monash University Publishing

September 1st marked 100 years since Japan's devastating Great Kantō Earthquake, a 7.9 magnitude quake which claimed over 105,000 lives. In the wake of the disaster, rumours spread about Koreans looting properties and poisoning wells, resulting in an upswell of vigilante violence that saw thousands more killed. A century on, Japan is still grappling with the commemoration of these atrocities.  Guest: Roger Pulvers, author and playwright, journalist and translator 

When you look at the record of successful referendums both here in Australia and internationally - what is the likelihood that the referendum on 14th October will get over the line? What will be the likely political ramifications if the referendum succeeds or fails? Guests: George Megalogenis, journalist and author and Matt Qvortrup, visiting professor at the ANU and author of several books on referendums.

When the American explorer Frederick Cook sent a telegram to the ‘New York Herald’ in 1909, claiming to be the first person to have reached the North Pole, he became an international celebrity overnight. But one lowly Fleet Street reporter began to doubt the great adventurer’s story. 

Historian Karina Urbach unravels the remarkable story of her grandmother, Alice Urbach, a renowned chef and cookery writer in the 1930s who was dubbed the ‘Julia Childs of Vienna.’

Described as an "organising genius" and an "extraordinary dynamo", South Australia's Doris Taylor (1901-1968) was a champion for the elderly and the isolated, establishing the volunteer-run Meals on Wheels in Adelaide in 1954. She was also a savvy political campaigner, helping future SA Premier Don Dunstan win his seat in Parliament in 1953.  Guest: Dr Carolyn Collins, historian and research fellow, University of Adelaide

Ocean journalist Laura Trethewey tells the story of the ocean mappers, marine biologists and millionaire adventurers involved in Seabed 2030, an epic project aiming to chart the entire ocean floor by 2030. 

A self-described small ‘l’ liberal conservative thinks our strategic alliance with the US is misplaced, and could ultimately make us more vulnerable to attack. Sam Roggeveen from the Lowy Institute is the author of 'The Echidna Strategy' 

Australia is staring down the barrel of a hot, dry summer. Fire experts Stephen Pyne and Greg Mullins discuss whether things could get as bad here as they've been in the Northern Hemisphere this year.

Meet the young women shunning fourth-wave feminism for a life of domestic servitude. 

Donald J. Trump decided not to show up at the first televised Republican candidate debate, spruiking his mugshot merchandise instead. Florida Governor (and Republican frontrunner) Ron DeSantis was booed as he attended a vigil in Jacksonville, after three people were killed in a racist attack.  And 60 years on from Martin Luther King's 'I have a dream' speech, is America any more unified?  GUEST: Bruce Shapiro, Contributing editor with The Nation magazine; and Executive Director of the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia University

In the 1940s, Australian-born spy Charles Howard 'Dick' Ellis was one of MI6's elite secret agents, involved in espionage activities across half the world. But in the 1980s, he was posthumously accused of having operated as a 'triple agent' for both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Author and journalist Jesse Fink tries to uncover the truth.  Guest: Jesse Fink, author, The Eagle in the Mirror: In Search of Australian War Hero, Master Spy and Alleged Traitor Charles Howard 'Dick' Ellis

The modern personal virtues of authenticity, vulnerability and humility sound desirable enough in a politician or a business leader, but could these virtues actually be damaging democracy? Lucinda Holdforth, author of "21st century virtues: How they are failing our democracy" (Monash University Publishing)

In forty years time, Australians on average will be older and more reliant on government services, according to the government's latest intergenerational report. Former Treasury secretary Ken Henry has warned of a looming "tragedy" for working Australians.  Plus, Qantas CEO Alan Joyce faces a Senate inquiry on cost-of-living pressures.  Guest: Sean Kelly, weekly columnist with Sydney Morning Herald & The Age

Is there something innately human about a thirst for knowledge? Could the rise of 'smart' technology undermine our own ability to think? These are just some of the questions that award-winning writer Simon Winchester and Phillip Adams tackle in this conversation about Simon's new book Knowing What We Know: The Transmission of Knowledge: From Ancient Wisdom to Modern Magic.

Science historian James Hannam takes Phillip on a journey spanning millennia as he traces humanity’s quest to discover the shape of the world.

La Via Campesina is a global movement that is reclaiming the word peasant for those who live and work on small farms across the globe. They are campaigning for food sovereignty for all peasant farmers,  ensuring they have control over what they grow and how they grow it. And there are countries like Colombia that are already working towards this goal. Guest: Morgan Ody, General Co-ordinator, La Via Campesina

Tim Flannery was just a teenager when he came across a giant fossilised shark tooth in a creek in Western Victoria - it was the beginning of a lifelong fascination with the megalodon. 

From overflowing churchyard plots, to sprawling suburban cemeteries - American approaches to the grave have shifted over time. Now, novel alternatives like "green burial" and human composting offer a new interpretation of the grave in the 21st Century. 

Over a decade after it was first inked, it’s been announced that there is no way the Murray Darling Basin Plan can be implemented by the deadline of 30 June 2024. The ANU's Dr Jamie Pittock says it won't be easy to get the Plan back on track, but the environmental and social consequences will be dire if we don't. 

I-newspaper columnist Ian Dunt thinks Rishi Sunak and Prince William would've moved mountains to cheer on a men's side in Sydney, but a women's World Cup is too much of a hassle. 

In the 1980s, a 14 year old Andrew Sneddon finds solace in history books. It's his refuge from a violent stepfather and the criminal underworld on Australia's Gold Coast. Andrew is an archaeologist and heritage consultant, and author of the memoir ‘Prehistoric Joy’ (University of QLD Press) 

Albania is suddenly a popular tourist destination, but at the same time, Albanian migrants in the UK are derided, and have been the focus of tougher immigration policies. With best-selling Albanian/British author and academic Lea Ypi

Laura Tingle previews the Intergenerational Report due out later in the week and the debate over AUKUS at the National ALP Conference. Guest: Laura Tingle, Chief Political Correspondent, 7.30

If we are wise, we embrace failure. Not because it leads to success, as the self-help industry would have us believe. But because failure teaches us humility, which leads to insight, and a radical idea for a better politics. With philosopher Costica Bradatan.

While the military coup in Niger may be about the personal ambition of a General under threat, the consequences for the region are serious. The progress that former President Bazoum was making against increasing jihadism will likely be stalled, and the new military leadership may also provide the Wagner group with another base and source of income in West Africa. Guest: Kinley Salmon, Africa Correspondent for The Economist

Have you ever wondered about the first living creature to deliberately make a noise? What can we learn from the shape of our own ears about how the first sea creatures evolved to hear. Biologist David George Haskell has thought a lot about the sounds found in nature. He believes that the significance of the evolution of sound has long been underestimated and under-researched. Humans need to listen more and make less noise, because the louder humans get, the greater the loss of sound diversity. Guest: David George Haskell, Professor of Biology and Environmental Studies at Sewanee University. Author of Sounds: Wild and Broken published by Black Inc For the link to all ABC Science Week content - click here For the link to the Nature Track recordings - click here For the link to recordings made by David George Haskell played during the interview - click here Originally broadcast on 14 April 2022.

Biologist Lixing Sun explores the evolution of cheating in the natural world, revealing how dishonesty has given rise to wondrous diversity. Guest: Dr Lixing Sun - Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Central Washington University. Author of The Liars of Nature and the Nature of Liars: Cheating and Deception in the Living World published by Princeton University Press.

In the two years since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan again, women's rights have been consistently eroded. The right to attend university and high school has been taken away. Women are no longer able to work for government or aid organisations - even the UN can no longer employ women. How can the international community pressure the Taliban to reverse these policies? Guest: Farkhondeh Akbari, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Gender Peace and Security Centre, Monash University

Could all this bad press be good news for Trump's next presidential campaign?

In the early 1970s, a group of 150 Japanese snow monkeys were transplanted from their cold mountain home near Kyoto, to a dusty, sun-drenched ranch in southern Texas. Why and how they were relocated is a weird and wonderful tale. Writer Sarah Bird embarks on a journey to find this fabled population of monkeys, 50 years on.  Guest: Sarah Bird, writer and novelist based in Austin, Texas

In the early 1970s, a group of 150 Japanese snow monkeys were transplanted from their cold mountain home near Kyoto, to a dusty, sun-drenched ranch in southern Texas. Why and how they were relocated is a weird and wonderful tale. Writer Sarah Bird embarks on a journey to find this fabled population of monkeys, 50 years on.  Guest: Sarah Bird, writer and novelist based in Austin, Texas

The world is facing unprecedented threats to food security, following the Kremlin’s decision to withdraw from the Black Sea Grain Initiative and the onset of El Niño. Guest: Joseph Glauber - Senior Research Fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

The world is facing unprecedented threats to food security, following the Kremlin’s decision to withdraw from the Black Sea Grain Initiative and the onset of El Niño. Guest: Joseph Glauber - Senior Research Fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

Can a nearly all-Labor Cabinet meeting of Premiers and Federal Ministers come up with a solution t the housing shortage? Plus tax and climate pressure on the PM from within Labor ranks. With Laura Tingle

Can a nearly all-Labor Cabinet meeting of Premiers and Federal Ministers come up with a solution t the housing shortage? Plus tax and climate pressure on the PM from within Labor ranks. With Laura Tingle

In the year 68AD, the death of Emperor Nero precipitated a year of coups and civil war that saw four Caesars in succession rule the Roman Empire. But from the chaos emerged a 70-year era of unrivalled peace, power and prosperity known as the pax romana - when the Empire reached the heights of its predatory glory.  Guest: Tom Holland, historian and author of Pax: War and Peace in Rome's Golden Age. Co-host of The Rest is History podcast. 

In the year 68AD, the death of Emperor Nero precipitated a year of coups and civil war that saw four Caesars in succession rule the Roman Empire. But from the chaos emerged a 70-year era of unrivalled peace, power and prosperity known as the pax romana - when the Empire reached the heights of its predatory glory.  Guest: Tom Holland, historian and author of Pax: War and Peace in Rome's Golden Age. Co-host of The Rest is History podcast. 

A new documentary 'Abebe-Butterfly Song' charts the musical legacy and enduring friendship between celebrated Papuan musician George Telek and Australian musician and producer David Bridie. The documentary is premiering at the Melbourne International Film Festival on Sunday 13 August. Details can be found here.  George Telek and David Bridie will also be performing at the Memo Music Hall on Saturday 19 August. Details can be found here. 

A new documentary 'Abebe-Butterfly Song' charts the musical legacy and enduring friendship between celebrated Papuan musician George Telek and Australian musician and producer David Bridie. The documentary is premiering at the Melbourne International Film Festival on Sunday 13 August. Details can be found here.  George Telek and David Bridie will also be performing at the Memo Music Hall on Saturday 19 August. Details can be found here. 

Three years ago, there was a huge explosion at the port in Beirut that killed more than 220 people, injured thousands and left 300,000 homeless. For many Lebanese women, this blast was the final straw and they have now left their home country, but others have stayed on to fight for justice for those they lost. Guest: Dalal Mawad, author of All She Lost: The explosion in Lebanon, the Collapse of a Nation and the Women who Survive (Bloomsbury)

Three years ago, there was a huge explosion at the port in Beirut that killed more than 220 people, injured thousands and left 300,000 homeless. For many Lebanese women, this blast was the final straw and they have now left their home country, but others have stayed on to fight for justice for those they lost. Guest: Dalal Mawad, author of All She Lost: The explosion in Lebanon, the Collapse of a Nation and the Women who Survive (Bloomsbury)

In South Africa, this female anti-poaching unit has had a major impact on wildlife conservation, as well as combating gender stereotypes. This year, they celebrate their 10th anniversary. Guests: Leitah Mkhabela - Black Mambas’ supervisor and Ops room Manager. Felicia Mogakane – Black Mambas’ Ops room Manager and Sergeant.

In South Africa, this female anti-poaching unit has had a major impact on wildlife conservation, as well as combating gender stereotypes. This year, they celebrate their 10th anniversary. Guests: Leitah Mkhabela - Black Mambas’ supervisor and Ops room Manager. Felicia Mogakane – Black Mambas’ Ops room Manager and Sergeant.

Today, the online betting industry is worth an estimated $74 billion USD globally per year, and rising. Surprisingly, online betting in Australia got its start in the outback town of Alice Springs. Decades later, these multinational companies are spending millions on advertising during sports broadcasts, raising concerns about potential gambling harm.  Guest: Drew Rooke, freelance writer and journalists, author of One Last Spin: the power and peril of the pokies.

Today, the online betting industry is worth an estimated $74 billion USD globally per year, and rising. Surprisingly, online betting in Australia got its start in the outback town of Alice Springs. Decades later, these multinational companies are spending millions on advertising during sports broadcasts, raising concerns about potential gambling harm.  Guest: Drew Rooke, freelance writer and journalists, author of One Last Spin: the power and peril of the pokies.

I-newspaper columnist Ian Dunt discusses the latest developments in Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's attempts to 'stop the boats', as well as a damning parliamentary report which reveals that the UK government has been asleep at the wheel for a decade when it comes to the Wagner Group. Plus, we compare notes on the privatisation of the Australian and UK public service, and what it means for our democracies. 

I-newspaper columnist Ian Dunt discusses the latest developments in Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's attempts to 'stop the boats', as well as a damning parliamentary report which reveals that the UK government has been asleep at the wheel for a decade when it comes to the Wagner Group. Plus, we compare notes on the privatisation of the Australian and UK public service, and what it means for our democracies. 

Working alongside J. Robert Oppenheimer, on the Manhattan nuclear project, was British scientist William Penney. Penney then copied that bomb and exploded it off the coast of Western Australia, on the Montebello Islands. It was the first of many British nuclear tests in Australia. Author Paul Grace has been investigating.

Working alongside J. Robert Oppenheimer, on the Manhattan nuclear project, was British scientist William Penney. Penney then copied that bomb and exploded it off the coast of Western Australia, on the Montebello Islands. It was the first of many British nuclear tests in Australia. Author Paul Grace has been investigating.

On Tuesday, presidents of eight Amazon countries will meet to discuss the future of the rainforest and the region. Given that the Amazon is known as the 'lungs of the planet', the stakes could not be higher. Investigative journalist Bram Ebus says crime, as well as climate, needs to be top of the agenda.  Guest: Bram Ebus - journalist and photographer from the Netherlands based in Bogotá, Colombia; Rainforest Investigations Fellow at the Pulitzer Center; consultant for International Crisis Group.

On Tuesday, presidents of eight Amazon countries will meet to discuss the future of the rainforest and the region. Given that the Amazon is known as the 'lungs of the planet', the stakes could not be higher. Investigative journalist Bram Ebus says crime, as well as climate, needs to be top of the agenda.  Guest: Bram Ebus - journalist and photographer from the Netherlands based in Bogotá, Colombia; Rainforest Investigations Fellow at the Pulitzer Center; consultant for International Crisis Group.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has returned to the Garma Festival in the remote NT, and has stared down calls to rethink the timing of the Voice to Parliament Referendum. Guest: Laura Tingle, Chief Political Correspondent, 7.30

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has returned to the Garma Festival in the remote NT, and has stared down calls to rethink the timing of the Voice to Parliament Referendum. Guest: Laura Tingle, Chief Political Correspondent, 7.30

Author Walter Marsh on the era that shaped young Rupert Murdoch - the radical who espoused socialism, kept a bust of Lenin in his uni accommodation and then went on to build his empire from 1950s Adelaide.   Guest: Walter Marsh, journalist and author of Young Rupert - the making of the Murdoch empire,  published by Scribe. 

Author Walter Marsh on the era that shaped young Rupert Murdoch - the radical who espoused socialism, kept a bust of Lenin in his uni accommodation and then went on to build his empire from 1950s Adelaide.   Guest: Walter Marsh, journalist and author of Young Rupert - the making of the Murdoch empire,  published by Scribe. 

The incredible true crime tale of the ‘Angel Makers of Nagyrév’ – a group of women living in rural Hungary who, in the 1910's and 1920's, poisoned to death over a hundred men. Guest: Patti McCracken - journalist and author of The Angel Makers: Arsenic, a Midwife, and Modern History's Most Astonishing Murder Ring published by HarperCollins

The incredible true crime tale of the ‘Angel Makers of Nagyrév’ – a group of women living in rural Hungary who, in the 1910's and 1920's, poisoned to death over a hundred men. Guest: Patti McCracken - journalist and author of The Angel Makers: Arsenic, a Midwife, and Modern History's Most Astonishing Murder Ring published by HarperCollins

Male drug lords like Pablo Escobar and El Chapo Guzman are well known across the globe for their violence, power and wealth. But there are also many powerful, intriguing and largely unseen women who have also been at the centre of the drug cartels of Latin America.  Guest: Deborah Bonello, editorial director for VICE News Latin America and author of "Narcas - the secret rise of women in Latin America's cartels"

Male drug lords like Pablo Escobar and El Chapo Guzman are well known across the globe for their violence, power and wealth. But there are also many powerful, intriguing and largely unseen women who have also been at the centre of the drug cartels of Latin America.  Guest: Deborah Bonello, editorial director for VICE News Latin America and author of "Narcas - the secret rise of women in Latin America's cartels"

In this edition of our fortnightly Asia Update, we get an overview of the situation in Myanmar, where the military junta has extended the state of emergency for another six months, and granted a partial pardon to former leader Aung San Suu Kyi.  Guest: Thomas Kean - Director/editor-at-large at Frontier Myanmar and senior consultant with International Crisis Group.

In this edition of our fortnightly Asia Update, we get an overview of the situation in Myanmar, where the military junta has extended the state of emergency for another six months, and granted a partial pardon to former leader Aung San Suu Kyi.  Guest: Thomas Kean - Director/editor-at-large at Frontier Myanmar and senior consultant with International Crisis Group.

When Trump won the Presidency in 2016 - many believed that it was the votes of the angry rural voter that got him over the line. But research shows that there is not that much difference between rural and urban voters when it comes to their beliefs about democracy, equality and race, and in fact rural Americans are doing just fine economically as well.  Guest: Elizabeth Currid-Halkett, Professor of Public Policy, University of Southern California and author of “The Overlooked Americans” published by Hachette. 

When Trump won the Presidency in 2016 - many believed that it was the votes of the angry rural voter that got him over the line. But research shows that there is not that much difference between rural and urban voters when it comes to their beliefs about democracy, equality and race, and in fact rural Americans are doing just fine economically as well.  Guest: Elizabeth Currid-Halkett, Professor of Public Policy, University of Southern California and author of “The Overlooked Americans” published by Hachette. 

The Senate inquiry into Foreign Interference Through Social Media handed down its report today. Sydney-based sociologist Wunning Sun, who watched both her parents' funerals in China on the Chinese app WeChat, gives both a personal and analytical account of what's at stake.

The Senate inquiry into Foreign Interference Through Social Media handed down its report today. Sydney-based sociologist Wanning Sun, who watched both her parents' funerals in China on the Chinese app WeChat, gives both a personal and analytical account of what's at stake.

The Senate inquiry into Foreign Interference Through Social Media handed down its report today. Sydney-based sociologist Wunning Sun, who watched both her parents' funerals in China on the Chinese app WeChat, gives both a personal and analytical account of what's at stake.

The Senate inquiry into Foreign Interference Through Social Media handed down its report today. Sydney-based sociologist Wanning Sun, who watched both her parents' funerals in China on the Chinese app WeChat, gives both a personal and analytical account of what's at stake.

Between high temperatures sapping the life out of Florida's coral reefs, a heat dome sitting over Texas and Donald Trump in further legal hot water over the alleged mishandling of classified documents, things are certainly getting steamy in the United States... Guest: Bruce Shapiro, contributing editor with The Nation magazine; Executive Director of the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia University. 

Between high temperatures sapping the life out of Florida's coral reefs, a heat dome sitting over Texas and Donald Trump in further legal hot water over the alleged mishandling of classified documents, things are certainly getting steamy in the United States... Guest: Bruce Shapiro, contributing editor with The Nation magazine; Executive Director of the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia University. 

Flour mills as markers of a town's success, an important export to Asia with magnificent art on the flour bags, and mill photograhy, a genre you might not know existed. With Jess Jennings and Prof Paul Ashton

Flour mills as markers of a town's success, an important export to Asia with magnificent art on the flour bags, and mill photograhy, a genre you might not know existed. With Jess Jennings and Prof Paul Ashton

After 38 years in power, Hun Sen, the Prime Minister of Cambodia has announced that he will be passing the Prime Ministership to his son Hun Manet. Could this be an opportunity to reset relations with the West or is the pull of China too strong? Guest: Sebastian Strangio, Southeast Asia Editor at The Diplomat

After 38 years in power, Hun Sen, the Prime Minister of Cambodia has announced that he will be passing the Prime Ministership to his son Hun Manet. Could this be an opportunity to reset relations with the West or is the pull of China too strong? Guest: Sebastian Strangio, Southeast Asia Editor at The Diplomat

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese raises the prospect of a double-dissolution election as the government reintroduces its housing bill to the Parliament.  Guest: Laura Tingle, chief political correspondent, 7.30

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese raises the prospect of a double-dissolution election as the government reintroduces its housing bill to the Parliament.  Guest: Laura Tingle, chief political correspondent, 7.30

The popular 19th century fringe science of head-reading – mostly feeling bumps on the head – was mostly used by white, male practitioners. But it was also practised by people from the colonial margins. Alexandra Roginski has unearthed some colourful characters.

The popular 19th century fringe science of head-reading – mostly feeling bumps on the head – was mostly used by white, male practitioners. But it was also practised by people from the colonial margins. Alexandra Roginski has unearthed some colourful characters.

As heat waves scorch Europe and America, the effects of global warming cannot be ignored. But unlike fires, floods and cyclones, heat it often a silent killer. Author Jeff Goodell explains how we have adapted to heat in the past and what a future living with heat might look like. Guest: Jeff Goodell, author of Heat: Life and death on a scorched planet published by Black Inc

As heat waves scorch Europe and America, the effects of global warming cannot be ignored. But unlike fires, floods and cyclones, heat it often a silent killer. Author Jeff Goodell explains how we have adapted to heat in the past and what a future living with heat might look like. Guest: Jeff Goodell, author of Heat: Life and death on a scorched planet published by Black Inc

Myths of female monsters, demons and seductresses have endured for millennia. In ancient Mesopotamia, women feared a horrifying demon called Lamashdu, believed to be the source of miscarriages and child death. As centuries passed however, men co-opted these monsters from women's folklore for their own ends.  Guest: Sarah Clegg, historian and author Woman's Lore: 4000 years of Sirens, Serpents and Succubi

Myths of female monsters, demons and seductresses have endured for millennia. In ancient Mesopotamia, women feared a horrifying demon called Lamashdu, believed to be the source of miscarriages and child death. As centuries passed however, men co-opted these monsters from women's folklore for their own ends.  Guest: Sarah Clegg, historian and author Woman's Lore: 4000 years of Sirens, Serpents and Succubi

An escalation in gang violence in the Central American nation of Honduras has compelled President Xiomara Castro to proposed a drastic solution: the construction of a new prison, on a remote island in the Caribbean. 

An escalation in gang violence in the Central American nation of Honduras has compelled President Xiomara Castro to proposed a drastic solution: the construction of a new prison, on a remote island in the Caribbean. 

Today marks 20 years since Australian boots first stepped on the tarmac at Honiara's International Airport, to help restore peace amid ongoing ethnic and political tensions. Then prime minister John Howard said he expected Australia's presence to last "months". It lasted 14 years.  What's changed since, and what lies ahead for this Pacific nation?  Guests: Tess Newton-Cain, Pacific Hub, Griffith Asia Institute Robert Iroga, editor and publisher, Solomon Business Magazine

Today marks 20 years since Australian boots first stepped on the tarmac at Honiara's International Airport, to help restore peace amid ongoing ethnic and political tensions. Then prime minister John Howard said he expected Australia's presence to last "months". It lasted 14 years.  What's changed since, and what lies ahead for this Pacific nation?  Guests: Tess Newton-Cain, Pacific Hub, Griffith Asia Institute Robert Iroga, editor and publisher, Solomon Business Magazine

Midway through this referendum year, a re-set on the debate, including exactly what the hopes and intentions are for the Voice amendment, and why the Constitution even matters! Guests: Megan Davis and George Williams, co-authors of 'Everything you need to know about The Voice' (UNSW Press) 

Midway through this referendum year, a re-set on the debate, including exactly what the hopes and intentions are for the Voice amendment, and why the Constitution even matters! Guests: Megan Davis and George Williams, co-authors of 'Everything you need to know about The Voice' (UNSW Press) 

Last week, a trio of by-elections in the UK saw the Conservative party lose two seats, however the party held on to Boris Johnson's old seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip in suburban London. The results suggest Keir Starmer's Labour will comfortably win next year's general election. Guest: Alex Andreou, writer and broadcaster, co-host of "Oh God, What Now?"

Last week, a trio of by-elections in the UK saw the Conservative party lose two seats, however the party held on to Boris Johnson's old seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip in suburban London. The results suggest Keir Starmer's Labour will comfortably win next year's general election. Guest: Alex Andreou, writer and broadcaster, co-host of "Oh God, What Now?"

In the late 1970s in Norway a proposal to dam the mighty Alta river sparked a huge protest by the Sami people - the indigenous people of Norway, Sweden and Finland. The river was renowned for its salmon runs and was an important habitat for migratory birds, reindeer, and other wildlife. Guests: Ole Giaever, Director, Let the River Flow plus Sarakka Gaup, actor and Sami activist.

In the late 1970s in Norway a proposal to dam the mighty Alta river sparked a huge protest by the Sami people - the indigenous people of Norway, Sweden and Finland. The river was renowned for its salmon runs and was an important habitat for migratory birds, reindeer, and other wildlife. Guests: Ole Giaever, Director, Let the River Flow plus Sarakka Gaup, actor and Sami activist.

Hollywood's film and TV sets have ground to halt, after the Screen Actors Guild joined the Writers Guild in strike action, demanding a fairer pay deal for workers in the era of digital streaming.  The last "double strike" in Hollywood was in 1960, when future US President Ronald Reagan was at the helm of the Screen Actors Guild.  Guest: Dr Prudence Flowers, Senior Lecturer in US History, Flinders University

Hollywood's film and TV sets have ground to halt, after the Screen Actors Guild joined the Writers Guild in strike action, demanding a fairer pay deal for workers in the era of digital streaming.  The last "double strike" in Hollywood was in 1960, when future US President Ronald Reagan was at the helm of the Screen Actors Guild.  Guest: Dr Prudence Flowers, Senior Lecturer in US History, Flinders University

Kathryn Campbell resigns from her position on the AUKUS advisory panel - so what does this mean for investigations into whether she breached the APS Code of Conduct? Labor announces reforms for casual workers and a new Productivity Commission head as recession looms.  Guest: Laura Tingle, Chief Political Correspondent, 7.30

Kathryn Campbell resigns from her position on the AUKUS advisory panel - so what does this mean for investigations into whether she breached the APS Code of Conduct? Labor announces reforms for casual workers and a new Productivity Commission head as recession looms.  Guest: Laura Tingle, Chief Political Correspondent, 7.30

As Christopher Nolan's new epic Oppenheimer hits cinema screens, Professor of Philosophy and biographer Ray Monk recounts the true story of scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer - the reluctant father of the atomic bomb.  This interview originally aired in 2013.  Guest: Ray Monk, author of Inside the Centre: The Life of J. Robert Oppenheimer.

As Christopher Nolan's new epic Oppenheimer hits cinema screens, Professor of Philosophy and biographer Ray Monk recounts the true story of scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer - the reluctant father of the atomic bomb.  This interview originally aired in 2013.  Guest: Ray Monk, author of Inside the Centre: The Life of J. Robert Oppenheimer.

From Aztec symbols of the underworld to wizard couriers in the Harry Potter series, owls have captivated and intrigued us for millennia. New science is unravelling some of the mysteries of owls and it turns out we might be wise to listen to what owls have to tell us. Guest: Jennifer Ackerman - award-winning science writer and speaker, and the New York Times bestselling author of What an Owl Knows, The Bird Way, and The Genius of Birds.

From Aztec symbols of the underworld to wizard couriers in the Harry Potter series, owls have captivated and intrigued us for millennia. New science is unravelling some of the mysteries of owls and it turns out we might be wise to listen to what owls have to tell us. Guest: Jennifer Ackerman - award-winning science writer and speaker, and the New York Times bestselling author of What an Owl Knows, The Bird Way, and The Genius of Birds.

Australia is contributing to Germany's rearmament, with a record defence deal. After decades of German pacifism, which followed the very hard lessons of WW2, a change is underway in that country. Guest: Stephen Milder, historian of German pacifism and Green democracy 

Australia is contributing to Germany's rearmament, with a record defence deal. After decades of German pacifism, which followed the very hard lessons of WW2, a change is underway in that country. Guest: Stephen Milder, historian of German pacifism and Green democracy 

A proposal to set up a NATO office in Japan has drawn much criticism for its potential destabilising effect on the region. But should we be worried? Guest: Dr Michito Tsuruoka, Associate Professor at Keio University and currently a visiting fellow at the Australian National University

A proposal to set up a NATO office in Japan has drawn much criticism for its potential destabilising effect on the region. But should we be worried? Guest: Dr Michito Tsuruoka, Associate Professor at Keio University and currently a visiting fellow at the Australian National University

Termites have a bad rap. But for the Gurindji people, the termite mound is critical to cultural traditions when a child is born. A new children's book tells this story in Gurindji language and English offering both cultural and scientific information about the amazing termite. Book: Tamarra: a story of termites on Gurindji country,  published by Hardie Grant Guests: Three contributors to the book; Leah Leaman, artist and co-author, Gregory Crocetti, science educator from the Free Scale Network and Felicity Meakins,  linguist and translator 

Termites have a bad rap. But for the Gurindji people, the termite mound is critical to cultural traditions when a child is born. A new children's book tells this story in Gurindji language and English offering both cultural and scientific information about the amazing termite. Book: Tamarra: a story of termites on Gurindji country,  published by Hardie Grant Guests: Three contributors to the book; Leah Leaman, artist and co-author, Gregory Crocetti, science educator from the Free Scale Network and Felicity Meakins,  linguist and translator 

Supporters of Ugandan opposition leader, Bobi Wine, have taken allegations of abduction and torture to the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Guest: Regina Weiss, human rights barrister at Derwent & Tamar Chambers in Hobart.  Regina is a former prosecution trial lawyer at the International Criminal Court, specialising in East Africa.

Supporters of Ugandan opposition leader, Bobi Wine, have taken allegations of abduction and torture to the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Guest: Regina Weiss, human rights barrister at Derwent & Tamar Chambers in Hobart.  Regina is a former prosecution trial lawyer at the International Criminal Court, specialising in East Africa.

President Joe Biden controversially sends cluster munitions to Ukraine while continuing to deny Ukraine entry to NATO. The Democrats are having to distance themselves from presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr and his bizarre conspiracy theories. Guest: Bruce Shapiro, contributing editor with The Nation magazine; Executive Director of the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia University. ​​​​​​​

President Joe Biden controversially sends cluster munitions to Ukraine while continuing to deny Ukraine entry to NATO. The Democrats are having to distance themselves from presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr and his bizarre conspiracy theories. Guest: Bruce Shapiro, contributing editor with The Nation magazine; Executive Director of the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia University. ​​​​​​​

The United States has been in a state of perpetual war for the last two decades, however many of these forays remain almost entirely invisible to the public. Journalist and activist Norman Solomon exposes the true cost of America’s military machine and how the truth has been obfuscated for so long.   

The United States has been in a state of perpetual war for the last two decades, however many of these forays remain almost entirely invisible to the public. Journalist and activist Norman Solomon exposes the true cost of America’s military machine and how the truth has been obfuscated for so long.   

The cost of outsourcing work from the public service to the so-called "Big Four" auditing and consulting firms is conservatively estimated at $10 billion over the last decade - that we know of. So isn't it cheaper to have the public service do the work? And what are the challenges facing incoming RBA Governor Michele Bullock? Guest: Laura Tingle, Chief Political Correspondent, 7.30

The cost of outsourcing work from the public service to the so-called "Big Four" auditing and consulting firms is conservatively estimated at $10 billion over the last decade - that we know of. So isn't it cheaper to have the public service do the work? And what are the challenges facing incoming RBA Governor Michele Bullock? Guest: Laura Tingle, Chief Political Correspondent, 7.30

As well earning him multiple Walkley and Logie awards, the work done by investigative journalist Chris Masters PSM has arguably changed Australia, for the better. He speaks to Phillip Adams about his distinguished career, which culminated in his latest book Flawed Hero: Truth, lies and war crimes. 

As well earning him multiple Walkley and Logie awards, the work done by investigative journalist Chris Masters PSM has arguably changed Australia, for the better. He speaks to Phillip Adams about his distinguished career, which culminated in his latest book Flawed Hero: Truth, lies and war crimes.