Critical Line Item with Tom Ravlic

Rita Anwari is concerned about the fate of Afghanistan under the Taliban and the women's rights activist and leadership advocate tells Tom Ravlic about the concerns she has for the health and well being of people in the country following the rapid rise to power of the Taliban. The audio comes from an interview recorded for a live stream. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jessica Davis is an intelligence analyst with many years of experience looking at the way illicit networks finance their activities. She is the main consultant for the Canadian-based Insight Threat Intelligence. Her new book,. illicit Money - Financing Terrorism in the Twenty-First Century, comes out next month and she speaks with Tom Ravlic about key sources of funds and fundraising methods used...

The Soufan Center's Mollie Saltskog is an expert in analysing extremism and she tells Tom Ravlic that it doesn't matter what the narrative - jihadist or white supremacist or anarchist - nation states cannot bomb their way out of the narrative. The return of the Islamist regime of the Taliban in Afghanistan is a case in point with concerns being raised about the fate of women and children in a resu...

The Saturday Paper's political correspondent Karen Middleton has been to Afghanistan on three separate occasions and saw some of what Australian soldiers went through serving in that country. She reported for SBS at the time and also wrote a book called An Unwinnable War - Australia in Afghanistan. She reflects on her visits to the country and on reemergence of the Taliban as a governing force ove...

UFOs are things of science fiction and fantasy ... or are they? Investigative journalist Ross Coulthart has a new book out called In Plain Sight that explores the topic of flying craft or objects that are clearly more advanced than anybody has seen before. Where do they come from? Who knows? What kind of technology does this? Ross explores these issues and more in this podcast. This podcast is the...

Sophia Moskalenko is a clinical and social psychologist who had developed a deep interest in what causes people, firstly, to get radicalised and, secondly, engaged in violence. Her work has profound consequences for our understanding of what causes people to hold radical views as well as take radical actions. The emergence of QAnon has seen Moskalenlo and co-author Mollie Bloom take a deep dive in...

Crikey's Charlie Lewis spends a look of his time looking at the strange things politicians and other public figures do in his column called Tips and Rumors. The coronavirus pandemic has provided Charlie and his colleagues over that the online news publication plenty of fodder that includes analysis of how journalism fares in the context of the pandemic. He talks to Tom Ravlic about the good, the b...

Rita Anwari is a wormen's rights activist and a political analyst with a deep knowledge of Afghanistan. She notes that the current situation on the ground is worrisome and explains to people who may be unfamiliar why the Taliban has risen again. She has recently been acknowledged for her work in the empowerment of women and organises regular webinars to inform people about the state of play in Afg...

Jason Scanes is a former member of the ADF and the founder of Forsaken Fighters, a group dedicated to helping veterans as well as staff that assisted them in the field of battle. He is deeply concerned about the glacial pace at which the Federal Government appears to be moving to get Afghans that helped Australia out of harm's way and he tells Tom Ravlic the longer we wait, the harder it gets to e...

Glenn Kolomeitz is a former member of Australia's defence forces and a lawyer currently in the middle of the fight to get Afghans who worked with Australians in a range of functions. He and his team at GAP Veteran Legal Services is fighting against time to present as complete a picture of the the full staff list to government for vetting and approval. The situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating...

Former facilities manager Pat Ryan is constantly in touch with his former Afghan colleagues and on 18 July 2021 former and current embassy staff issued a plea to the Australian government to get them out of harm's way. A protest was held in front of the United Nations building in Kabul - likely to be one of the last gatherings of the this kind - by people who served Australia who spend more time i...

Ed Schofield's story has it all. The former extremist was imprisoned and had to fend for himself. He started the State Prison Skinheads after he became radicalised by friends who introduced him to the ideologies of white supremacy as a why of explaining why he ended up in the clink. It was reading and questioning the ideologies he was led to believe were right that resulted in him leaving the move...

Tom Tanuki is a commentator, author and a bit of an activist. He created a fake nationalist group some years ago to poke fun at various far right groups in Australia. Vision of Tanuki's creation remains in television libraries and is at times used as overlay footage even today - a fact that grates with him in the aftermath of the Christchurch shootings. Like many others Tanuki sees the future in e...

Fred Cook was a senior office bearer in the National Socialist Movement and deeply involved in organisation activities such as rallies and meetings. He walked away from the extremist movements some years ago but only recently did he discover that he had Jewish origins. His story must be heard to be believed. Tune in. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Australia followed the United States into Afghanistan and established consular and military operations that need local knowledge to be able to function properly..Western forces are leaving Afghanistan and people that had worked with Western government such as Australia fear for their lives given the advancing Taliban forces. Former facilities manager, Pat Ryan, worked with Afghan employees and is...

Dr Kay Danes OAM has a wealth of experience in dealing with individuals and families that have been involved with the Department of Defense. Her own family has a history within Australia's defense forces. It is difficult for members of the defense forces that submit complaints to the hierarchy to get a hearing and when complaints are entertained it appears to go into a secretive black hole. There...

Work for Climate is an organisation that has the goal of helping companies work out what they can do to make their operations more environmentally friendly. It has online portals and a discussion group for corporate executives that are wanting to learn from others that have implemented measures to reduce the impact a company has on the climate. Lucy Piper, a director at Work for Climate, explains...

This is your essential guide to what you need to know for Tax Time 2021. This podcast is the audio feed from a live streamed event that took place on 3 July 2021 featuring Lisa Greig and Tom Ravlic. Topics covered include definitions of expenses, income, self education expenses, professional development, claiming laundry, cents per kilometre deductions, and the thorny area of dealing with cryptocu...

You know those weird e-mails, texts, and web sites you are continually warned about? Bad actors continually try to con you into parting with identification details and your money. Jaqueline Jayne, the security awareness advocate with KnowBe4, outlines some of the things bad people who want easy money to on the internet and what you need to know to stay safe online. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/p...

6 News anchor Leo Puglisi has pencil shavings in his 6 News mug - a souvenir of the most recent bout of home learning thanks to the most recent coronavirus lock down. Leo and Tom Ravlic talk about how this lock down remote learning session went as well as QAnon and like conspiracy theories (and what Leo thinks about the National Party's leadership fuss). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for...

QAnon conspiracy theories have caused headaches across the globe. Disinformation related to human trafficking conspiracies impacted on Polaris, an organisation dedicated to stopping human traffickers plying their trade. Anjana Rajan from Polaris joins Tom Ravlic to explain the real world impact of conspiracy theories and how Polaris has had to adjust its processes to handle challenges posed by con...

Musician Daryl Davis has toured and worked with some of the greatest artists in soul, blues and rock and roll but he has had an interest over many decades in trying to bridge the racial divide that white spremacists are keen to perpetuate. Davis is a black musician and he actively seeks out members of the Ku Klux Klan to talk to them about their beliefs and to see if he can act as a catalyst for t...

Professor Gemma Carey is an academic and author that has a health challenges that make life challenging. She recently had the COVID vaccination and during this podcast with Tom Ravlic she offers an insight into her experience as well as reminding us of the fact that healthy people without underlying illnesses should consider getting the vaccine. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more info...

Academic and researcher Alexandra Pavliuc from the Oxford Internet Institute is one of a team that took a deep dive into a sea of data to look at how prominent female politicians were abused online during a two month period. The findings of the report, which is titled 'Malign Creativity', are important because they point to the impact of online toxicity on women and their willingness to entertain...

A running debate in media circles in Australia and elsewhere is to what extent should journalists report extremist groups and how these stories are framed. Jeff Schoep spent 27 years in the National Social Movement and in this podcast he exposes the methods extremist groups use generate outrage, obtain publicity and some of the illusions groups may use to make themselves seem bigger than they real...