Late Night Live — Full program podcast

Small business has been the focus of the Banking Royal Commission this week. Who is in the hot seat? Newsweek once branded Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr the most dangerous man in Iraq - now he's at the front of a reformist political movement. Social insects may inspire solutions for our rapidly urbanizing cities. Could ants, bees and slime moulds solve our infrastructure woes?

'Sultan Erdogan' rallies the Turkish diaspora in Bosnia. Bruce Shapiro reports on US politics.

Laura Tingle joins us for the latest from Canberra, as Ireland's vote on abortion gets closer, so is the result according to polls and the fascinating life of traders from all over Africa who are making a living in the city of Guangzhou in China.

Ian Dunt on all the new from the UK; is Google Duplex able to replicate the human brain? Going back to the family cow farm.

Is there any chance of peace in Gaza? Do voters in New Caledonia's independence debate want 'Frexit'? And, last but not least, we get to the deep, dark root of chiropterophobia.

American Jews, Israel and Trump's Middle East policy. Can a love of certainty lead to nationalism, xenophobia and fundamentalism. Where do you want to go for your next holiday? LNL has got you sorted.

Laura joins us to interpret the polls which are telling us wildly divergent stories, is regime change Trump's goal behind pulling out of the Iran deal, and in India we discuss whether it is good policy to have private companies adopting heritage sites.

David Christian's new book explores the idea of a shared humanity in which our Paleolithic ancestors and Neolithic farmers play as important a role as the rulers, emperors and conquerors who have dominated scholarship.

1. PNG’s LNG project was supposed to deliver billions to PNG’s economy and people. Instead it’s delivered billions to western operators and the local landowners haven’t yet received any royalties.

New York Resignations, West Virginia Senate campaign and waiting on the Iran deal decision. The indigenous people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts are facing increasing pressure and violence from the military to make way for Bengali settlers. If a love of literature and poetry make us better people, how to explain why so many of 20th century depots wrote so many books?

Laura Tingle explains why Santa is coming early this year and Simon Winchester explains the significance of precision engineering in getting us to where we are today.

The fallout from the Windrush scandal and all the other news from the UK with Ian Dunt; Steve Coll's new book about the US's wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan focuses on a highly secret wing of Pakistani intelligence called Directorate S; what are the real causes of depression and are drugs the answer?

Can the Iran nuclear deal survive after May 12th? Richard Lloyd Parry's book, Ghosts of the Tsunami, tackles the giant story of Japan's 2011 catastrophe by focusing on a small, poignant corner of loss. Over 100 years ago Ethiopia was known as the Abyssinian Empire, and was a country which had remained unchanged and unconquered for almost 1,600 years.

Bruce Shapiro brings us the latest from the U.S., we find out why Jamaican Rastafarians are returning home to Africa and ask what lessons can be learnt from twentieth-century peacemakers.

Laura Tingle joins us with the latest from Canberra in the lead up to the May budget, we find out what are the repercussions of the trial of the former dictator of Chad for human rights protections, and just what are the consequences of the rise of the super CEOs.

As the mid term elections approach both parties seem stuck in a vision of the past. Why is President Trump attracting such strong backing from conservative Christians?: Alek Manassian has been charged with the murder of ten people in Toronto in Canada after running pedestrians down in a van. What do we know about his motivations?: On-demand entertainment company Netflix has more than 125 million s...

Dreaming of war, seeing aeroplanes, the mystery aeroplane panic in Australia 1918."Engineering," says Indian-born structural engineer Roma Agrawal, "has created the fabric of our lives and shaped the spaces in which we live and work", and yet our engineers remain unsung heroes.

Bruce Shapiro dissects whether the Democratic Party's decision to sue is a good one, we find out the sources of the continuing violence in West Papua and we hear the remarkable story of the original Siamese twins, Chang and Eng.

Fallout from the banking Royal Commission continues. The number of migrants arriving in Europe has abated, so why does anti-migrant sentiment continue to drive news and politics? India's democracy is now 70, what are its successes and where is it vulnerable?

Theresa May faces the heat on several fronts as she tries to navigate the strikes against Syria and CHOGM; does expelling diplomats have any actual effect - or does it require a broader strategy? And why is political populism so popular right now?

Wife to one president, mother to another, Barbara Bush who died today was in her own way an unconventional political figure. Can liberals and conservatives survive together in the Liberal Party. On the eve of Passover 1943 60 000 Polish Jews living under Nazi occupation revolted, marking the most significant moments of Jewish resistance during the holocaust, 75 years on the history is being contes...

Former FBI Director James Comey reveals all in his book while Michael Cohen tries unsuccessfully to hide all, the complaints of blasphemy against Sukwamati Sukarnoputri are explained and we find out what happened when New Zealand sent some of their criminals to Tasmania.

In its second phase, the banking commission took on financial planners and uncovered some uncomfortable truths. What are the political legal and human implications of the bombing of Syria - and will it protect civilians from attacks by Assad? Indian cities struggle to accommodate millions of people - is there any logic to their design and how could they be better built?

The announcement by Paul Ryan, Republican speaker of the House, that he is quitting politics, has implications for the mid term elections and for the factions within the Republican party. Who is he and why is he quitting? And all the rest of the week's political news from the US: Alongside the brutality of the ISIS regime sat a sometimes surprisingly efficient bureaucracy: Will the latest proposed...

The political consequences of the conviction and imprisonment of former president of Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Is it possible that China, the world's rising superpower, could be undermining its own future status? Armando Iannucci's new film is about Stalin, his death after years of inflicting terror, the powerplay to succeed him, the evil characters in his court. It's also a comedy.