Global Roaming with Geraldine Doogue and Hamish Macdonald

There’s an important meeting in Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s diary. On Monday, Japan’s first female prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, will touch down in Australia for high‑level talks with the Albanese government, following Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s trip to Tokyo to shore up fuel and fertiliser supplies. So, are friends in need friends indeed? Australia wants fuel from our friends in the no...

US defence secretary Pete Hegseth denies Trump's war on Iran has hit a "quagmire", but the reality on the ground tells a different story. With an ongoing stand-off in the Strait of Hormuz and diplomatic efforts yielding little progress, the war appears to have hit a stalemate.  So what or who decides how this ends? And what does the United Arab Emirates' split from the Organisation of the Petroleu...

On Saturday evening a gunman attempted to storm the annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner in Washington DC.  The act of political violence -  the third assassination attempt of US President Donald Trump - occurred just three days before the 30th anniversary of Australia's deadliest mass shooting, the Port Arthur massacre, which prompted sweeping gun reform. So why has one country b...

Artificial intelligence is reshaping power, cyber security and geopolitics, but can anyone really control it? From the US-China AI arms race to Taiwan's chip power, hosts Kylie Morris and Waleed Aly dive into the rapidly changing world of AI and the limits of democratic powers to regulate it.  What can we make of Anthropic's decision not to release its powerful Mythos model? And do we truly unders...

On this episode of Global Roaming's mini-series, Indonesia Rising, Hamish returns to Jakarta to speak to Indonesian communications minister Meutya Hafid. How effective has Indonesia's social media ban for children under 16 been? What can Australia learn from its approach? And does the minister support President Prabowo's plan for "bottom-up" economic growth? Meutya has a strong connection to Austr...

On the eve of Anzac Day, the Global Roaming team comes together to discuss war, peace and what Australia's national day of remembrance means as conflict rages around the globe.   What's missing from daily coverage of conflicts in Africa, the Middle East and Europe? Does the way we talk about war need to change? And where are the peacemakers?  Hosts: Latika Bourke, Kylie Morris, Hamish Macdonald, G...

In November 2024, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes. But since then, he's visited the US and Hungary and news of the ICC case has grown quiet.  So what's happened to the proceedings? What plays are being made behind the scenes? And is the "breakdown" of multilateral organisations like the United Natio...

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz is sending shock waves through the global economy. Supply chains are in disarray, inflation is surging and oil prices remain high. With no end in sight to the US-Iran war, is a global recession inevitable? And does that metric even matter?   On this episode of Global Roaming, Latika and Geraldine examine how the US economy is holding up and what it could mean fo...

Trump's AI-generated image of himself as the Pope has drawn harsh criticism. He also called the Pope “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,” in a Truth Social post. What does Trump gain from these bizarre allusions to Christianity? Are MAGA’s Christian nationalists tearing open long held wounds between the Catholic and Protestant faith in the United States? Hamish Macdonald and guest pre...

Australia's close neighbour is changing before our eyes. By mid-century, Indonesia is forecast to become the world’s fourth largest economy – imagine that! So how is Indonesia's economy really performing? Is democracy making a difference? And how will President Prabowo Subianto tackle the challenge of building infrastructure across an archipelago? In the first episode of Global Roaming's Indonesia...

Brexit, the COVID-19 pandemic, shifting global headwinds and now the war in the Middle East have hit the British hard. So with some of the world's highest energy costs and a stretched defence force,  what does the future hold?  Can Britain's deeply unpopular prime minister, Keir Starmer, survive the upcoming elections? And will this fallen empire ever rise again? On this episode of Global Roaming,...

Péter Magyar has beaten Viktor Orbán in Hungary's election, ending 16 years of autocratic rule. Hundreds of thousands of Hungarians celebrated in the streets of Budapest as the results were announced. Maygar won in a landslide, meaning his government has the power to enact significant reform, including bringing Hungary back into the EU fold. Hungarians voted for change of government and they got i...

The war in the Middle East is sending shock waves through global supply chains, so where does this leave economic superpower China? Will it emerge as a genuine global leader or merely make a profit from global disorder? Does Beijing see the US and the President Trump's instability as a threat or opportunity? In this episode, Geraldine and Latika go roaming to find out if China wants the global pow...

The ink hadn't even dried on the initial US-Iran ceasefire last week when Israel launched an unprecedented bombardment on Lebanon's capital, Beirut.  Latika Bourke and Laura Tingle speak to a seasoned analyst from the International Crisis Group in Lebanon, who gives a unique insight into the fissures in Lebanese society.  Is Hezbollah putting Iran's interests over Lebanon's? Will their most recent...

Is Wikipedia a relic of a more utopian version of the internet? Or is it the citizen-led antidote that we need? In the final episode of Global Roaming's Matter of Facts mini-series, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales joins Hamish and Geraldine to discuss how much we should value freedom of speech over stifling active disinformation. This episode is part of a companion series to Hamish's three-part T...

The Middle East conflict has triggered a reckoning in global energy supplies.  So as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese touches down in Singapore for talks to shore up fuel supplies, are there opportunities amidst the disruption? Could Australia work with South East Asia to develop more resilient energy supply chains?  In this episode, Hamish and Geraldine travel to Jakarta, Indonesia's capital and n...

The war in Iran has aroused worldwide fears: what happens if a country runs out of oil? Because of severe US restrictions , Cuba has faced that reality, having been without oil for three months. Latika and Kylie speak to correspondent Ruaridh Nicoll who has been travelling across the country to find out how the Cubans are surviving. Guest: Ruaridh Nicoll, journalist, freelancer, and author. He has...

A ceasefire is declared after Donald Trump agrees to a two-week pause in attacks on Iran, contingent on the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. But is this a genuine de-escalation or a strategic pause? A reprieve that the world has been desperate to see or statecraft in action?  In this episode of Global Roaming Geraldine and Latika speak to one of the UK's leading war and military specialists to b...

Australia's education system is one of our most successful export industries, worth an estimated 54 billion dollars. But as perceptions that our universities are "mediocre and overpriced" rise, is the opportunity to use education as a way to build stronger relationships with south east Asia passing Australia by?  This episode Hamish Macdonald and Kylie Morris go to Ho Chi Minh City to speak with D...

In our previous Matter of Facts mini-series episodes, we covered why our brains are vulnerable to misinformation, and how disinformation is affecting democracies. Today, we examine the public's trust (or lack thereof) in mainstream media. For decades, news outlets functioned to bridge the gap between the public and those in power. So, how did faith in traditional journalism erode, and what needs t...

Today, a special episode recorded at the Manly Writer's Festival 2026 where Geraldine speaks to three highly experienced diplomats -- Ian Kemish AM, Dr Robert Bowker, Dr Lachlan Straun. They talk about the challenges they faced in foreign negotiating rooms, how accurate the media representations of diplomats are, and whether there is a distinctly Australian style of diplomacy. Guests: Ian Kemish A...

As the war in the Middle East rages, Israel is waging offensives on multiple fronts. The state is pounding Iran and Beirut with missiles and drones. Ground troops are pushing deep into southern Lebanon and occupy half of Gaza. The expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank has become "unconstrained" and increasingly violent.  Is this Benjamin Netanyahu pursuing his expansionist dream of "Gr...

Iran has withstood US and Israel's offensive more effectively than those who attacked it had expected. They've made the most of geography - and shown just how vulnerable the global economy is. Despite this, Iran's allies, Moscow and Beijing, have been keeping their distance. But what about Yemen's Houthis? What difference could they make in this war? And at what point will the Gulf countries step...

President Trump’s campaign to pull allies like Australia and Japan into defending the Strait of Hormuz is growing more urgent by the day. Japan's pacifist constitution is seemingly at odds with the US calling for them to send warships to secure the Strait of Hormuz. Former Japanese ambassador to Australia, Shingo Yamagami, insists there are ways the country can contribute without directly going ag...

Disinformation accelerated by AI is affecting democracies worldwide at an extraordinary pace. Governments overseas are wielding it against their own citizens. Meanwhile closer to home, perceptions of AI interference in elections have us questioning everything. It's an information war being fought on several fronts. We finally have some empirical data on this new phenomena. So, how do we safeguard...