Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast

This week's mystery caller migrates from southeast Asia to feed over our summer wetlands – the Whiskered Tern.

Suzie Miller is one of the world’s most influential contemporary playwrights. In The Year That Made Me, Suzie publicly shares for the first time why 1995 was a year she didn't think she would survive, and why it changed the course of her life. A former lawyer who has a degree in science and grew up in a working class family in St Kilda, Suzie's theatrical works have been staged in fifty different...

FC aka Freakyclown has spent 3 decades breaking into banks and secure government locations, and he gave a keynote address at Melbourne's CyberCon 2026 on Friday. FC is an ethical hacker, who works for organisations that want him to reveal their security weaknesses to them. He's the co-founder of cyber security company  Cygenta , former Head of Offensive Cyber Research at defence contractor Raytheo...

The death of a Russian lab worker at an anti-plague research institute earlier this month has raised fresh concerns about the global implications of lab leaks.  Initial local reporting suggested that the worker died of pneumonic plague following a lab accident, but Russian health authorities deny this, and the official cause of death remains unknown. Alison Young has reported on the Russian incide...

Six weeks after flash flooding hurtled through northern Nepal, the government has concluded it's search and rescue mission for the thousands of people still missing. But as the government begins the slow process of recovery, how will it support and restore the lives of the 32,000 displaced Nepali who are mourning the loss of homes, livelihoods and loved ones? Guest: Kunda Dixit, publisher and form...

This month the African Union launched the Africa Credit Rating Agency. The continent's first ratings agency aims to level the playing field for banks, companies, sovereign wealth funds and other institutions seeking to access credit.  Africa is generally seen as a riskier lending prospect than other parts of the developing world and that means borrowers face much higher costs to access credit.  Th...

This week's mystery caller floods back to Australia from the north to enjoy our summer months – the Sacred Kingfisher.

Photojournalist Lorrie Graham was the first female photography cadet at The Sydney Morning Herald in 1975, and over the five decades since became “one of Australia’s most distinctive and influential photojournalists”. 

The Australian Museum holds an archive of photos, specimens and films taken by Harry Burrell, a vaudeville performer turned amateur naturalist, who changed the way the world understood the platypus. Harry used his vaudeville showmanship to display the quirks of the platypus in a specially built 'platypusary' which he took on travelling exhibitions around the country and even overseas.  By today's...

At the tender age of 95, Liz Hicklin keeps expanding her repetoire — from author and poet, to comedian and now star of a one-woman show about being a footnote to history, as the girlfriend who dated Ted Hughes before Sylvia Plath Guest: Liz Hicklin, writer and star of Sylvia Plath Stole My Boyfriend , playing at the Melbourne Fringe Festival from October 15-18

100 word including guest & book

Dr. Rachael Gunn aka Raygun represented Australia in women's breaking at the Paris 2024 Olympics. While she scored no points from the Olympic judges, she instantly scored a starring role at the centre of a social media firestorm debating her Australiana inspired routine.  Recently Raygun told her side of the story in the Netflix documentary series Untold, which features endearing star turns from h...

Indonesia is home to two of the world's last surviving tropical glaciers, which are found near the top of a 4882 metre mountain in Papua Province.  The glaciers used to cover much of the Surdiman mountain range but they're disappearing rapidly and predictions for when they will finally disappear range from 2026 to 2030. Dr Donaldi Permana is a climate research scientist and has made a number of ex...

This year’s  Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine  was jointly awarded to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann, and Georg Nagel, for their work in optogenetics, a method for controlling nerve signals with light. Their research began by isolating a light-responsive cell from pond algae, and now makes it possible to show how nerve cells shape memories, feelings and behaviours in the living brain.  Gues...

This week's mystery caller towers above its fellow wetland species – the Black-necked Stork.

Anyier Yuol arrived in Australia on a humanitarian visa from Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya aged 10.  Her parents, refugees from the civil war in South Sudan, had both died and she was raised in the camp by a aunt.  A talented footballer who once dreamt of playing for the Matildas, she switched to a career in academia and modelling.  Her PhD explored the cultural, social, and gendered dimensions of...

According to UNICEF, the United National Children’s Fund, there are an estimated 50 million refugee and displaced children around the world. 

This month on Sunday Intrigue, Jeremy Dicker, managing editor of International Intrigue, looks back at Switzerland's referendum on whether to enshrine a strict definition of neutrality in its constitution. And Brazil goes to the polls for the first round of the presidential election on October 4, in something of a re-run of the 2022 campaign. Incumbent president Lula da Silva is running against Fl...

Nike might be the largest sportswear brand in the world, but earlier this month, the iconic American company fell off the S&P 100 after a solid 18 year run, and a 78% drop in share price since 2021. The loss of the brand’s blue chip status indicates that its prestige is slipping along with its customer base. So, where did Nike stumble on the track, and what’s overtaken it? Guest: Hans Westerbe...

For more than 80 years it was thought that the Australian military had failed to rescue Australian prisoners of war held by the Japanese in Borneo because of a lack of political will and resources.  Almost 30 years ago, historian Lynette Ramsay Silver revealed that there had been a secret rescue mission known as Operation Kingfisher that was abandoned due to faulty intelligence.  Now she has publi...

After 27 painstaking years of painstaking and dangerous work, the HALO Trust is finally able to wrap up it's work clearing landmines and cluster bombs in Kosovo. Guest: Major General James Cowan, CEO of the HALO Trust

Stephen Hawking's celebrity status often framed him as a superhuman genius. But in a new authorised biography, Hawking: His Life and Work , author Graham Farmelo weaves a very human story of a man who was both extraordinary and deeply flawed. Guest: Graham Farmelo , author of Hawking: His Life and Work

This week's mystery woodland caller is Australia's smallest bird – the Weebill.

Despite the name, Tasmanian devils once lived across mainland Australia. Including, according to new research, the arid Pilbara region in the north west of Western Australia. Remains found at Juukan Gorge suggest that Tasmanian devils may have scavenged from human camps in the region for tens of thousands of years. While Juukan Gorge was partially destroyed by Rio Tinto in 2020, it is being carefu...

Winnie Dunn became the first Tongan-Australian to publish a novel with her 2024 debut Dirt Poor Islanders , a coming-of-age story about a Tongan-Australian girl growing up in Western Sydney. Now she has been invited to give the 2026 Ray Mathew Lecture at the National Library of Australia, and she previews her theme of representation in publishing for Sunday Extra. Guest: Winnie Dunn, author of Dir...