Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast

A comment from Peter Singer set ex-Q&A host and seven-time Walkley Award winner Tony Jones on a journey exploring the sentience of non-human animals, culminating in his directorial debut.  Sentient is a documentary that exposes the scale of the primate medical testing system, and explores the ethical and clinical questions that arise, as well as their possible answers. Sentient will be screeni...

Timor Leste, one of the world’s youngest nations continues to develop economically and is emerging as a member of ASEAN. But in 2008, the 6 year-old nation was in the grip of ethnic grievances and rebel groups, which had combined to create a politically volatile situation. It all came to a head on February 11 when both the president, Jose Ramos Horta, and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao were shot in...

The influx of 72,000 people into the tiny Spanish territory of Ceuta put the global spotlight on the curious phenomenon of enclaves. A close inspection of the world map reveals enclaves and exclaves and even enclaves within exclaves dot the earth, but how did they come to exist and what is life like for inhabitants of these geographical quirks? Guest: Dr Alexandra Novosseloff, author of Enclaves o...

As doctors reach a breaking point balancing patient care with an escalating administrative burden, AI scribes are emerging as a lifeline. But amid the rapid adoption of AI scribes in the medical community, are concerns about patient privacy and the quality of care being overlooked? Guest: Lizzie O'Shea, founder and chair of Digital Rights Watch The DRW's discussion paper is Off the Record — AI Scr...

100 word including guest & book

British comedian and broadcaster Bill Oddie has died at the age of 85. Although best remembered to ABC audiences as part of 1970s comedy trio The Goodies, Bill was also a devoted conservationist and passionate bird lover. Sunday Extra shares a section of an interview with Bill Oddie from the ABC archives, in which he talks about his love of birdwatching and why he sees it as a means of futureproof...

Mohammed Massoud Morsi is an Egyptian-Danish-Australian author, journalist and photographer who spent almost two decades working as a freelance journalist and photographer in places of conflict and crisis across Asia and the Middle East. Today, Morsi writes novels about love in places of war.  Morsi's first novel The Palace of Angels was short-listed for the 2020 NSW Premier's Literary Award, and...

Fatimah Omran is a Sydney mum who’s built a massive following on social media - over quarter of a million followers on TikTok for example - all on the strength of delicious Middle Eastern home cooking, and a particular knack for making it simple and easy enough to do at home yourself.   Now Fatimah has created her first cook book, Middle Eastern Simple . It’s a collection of mouth-watering recipes...

When author Yumna Kassab decided to write about her home suburb of Parramatta, she did so in an unconventional way: through a dictionary. But Parramatta: A Dictionary of Place Memory is anything but dry, weaving together personal reflections, quirky details and a heartfelt portrait of the place she loves. Guest: Yumna Kassab, author of Parramatta: A Dictionary of Place and Memory , and the 2023 in...

On August 2 1945, Australia’s first Immigration Minister Arthur Calwell gave a speech in parliament that The Museum of Australian Democracy described in an article titled “ Arthur Calwell and the gift of immigration ”. Arthur Calwell's legacy is a complicated one though, because that gift of immigration was very much wrapped up with his staunch and lifelong support for the White Australia policy. ...

Why do people join groups based around coercion and control, including people who we think should know better? At the Festival of Dangerous Ideas later this month there will be a discussion on cults, and the lead speaker is journalist Anke Richter whose 2022 book Cult Trip went right inside some of the world’s most insidious cults. Anke is also a foreign correspondent based in New Zealand and is t...

Indonesia's Rupiah has been losing value over the last two years, after decades of steady growth. This week's resignation of the Bank Indonesia Governor has prompted fresh concerns about the economic outlook, and the independence of the central bank. Guest: Arianto Patunru, economist at the ANU Indonesia Project and editor of the Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies

The contest for the top job at the UN is well under way, this week the first straw polls were held at the Security Council in New York. The results show that Costa Rica’s candidate, former Vice President Rebeca Grynspan is the current front runner, followed by candidates from Guyana and Argentina. Current Secretary General Antonio Guterres’s term ends on December 21, 2026 and whoever take over fro...

This week's small but colourful caller searches the tropical rainforest of Cape York Peninsula for seeds and fruit – the Red-cheeked Parrot.

On The Year That Made Me, former Liverpool football star Craig Johnston reflects on an extraordinary life that extends far beyond his success on the pitch, from winning Europe's biggest trophies to his influential career after football.

The Malleus Maleficarum, or The Hammer of Witches, was a 15th century manual that was directly responsible for the trials and executions thousands of women across Europe for the crime of witchcraft. Now the University of Melbourne’s Archives and Special Collections , has acquired a rare copy of the tome, bringing the witch trials of Europe to life for budding historians.  Guest: Dr. Charlotte Mill...

Astrology's place in popular culture can be traced back to Linda Goodman, whose 1968 book Sun Signs was the first astrology book to make it onto the New York Times bestseller list, and who was paid an unprecedented $2.25 million advance for her 1978 book Love Signs. Despite her astronomical success, Linda fell into obscurity after a devastating personal tragedy.  A long-time lover of Linda's work,...

When the Australian Labor Party turned 100 in 1991, one of ways the centenary was marked was the publication of a commissioned history by Ross McMullin: “The Light on the Hill: The Australian Labor Party 1891–1991”  In 2026, McMullin has published a new edition, which he describes as telling “the story of Australia’s oldest and most resilient and significant political party through the people who...

The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) is not a registered political party but its name is a parody of, and a reference to the Chief Judge of India’s Supreme Court referring to some young people as cockroaches.  

Alice Pung is the daughter of ethnic Chinese Cambodian migrants who fled the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge for Melbourne in the 1980s. She wrote about the joys and struggles of growing up in a migrant community in her first memoir Unpolished Gem, which won the 2007 Newcomer of the Year Award in the Australian Book Industry Awards. Alice went on to write five other books to much acclaim and her...

'Rock star' classicist Mary Beard is back in the spotlight with a new book, Talking Classics: The Shock of the Old .' Reflecting on half a century spent teaching and studying the classics, the beloved British historian explains why revolutionaries, dictators and pop stars have all been transfixed by the ancient world. Mary also reveals how her own passion for classics was sparked by a close-up chi...

Scientists have drawn up the first complete global map of the hidden fungal super-highway that runs beneath our feet. These mycorrhizal networks stretch an astonishing 110 quadrillion kilometres, which is about 1 billion times the distance of the Earth to the sun. Researchers estimate that the fungal super-highway moves around 4 billion tons of carbon dioxide into soils each year and plays a major...

In his new book, Angertainment , Ed Coper explores how online rage has grown into a cultural force offline, shaping politics, identity and influence. Coper argues that the fury flooding our feeds is not a reflection of human nature. It is the product of a purpose-built machine engineered to amplify division and monetise outrage.  Guest: Ed Coper, political advisor, communications consultant and au...

Laughing might seem uniquely human, but our closest relatives in the animal kingdom do it too. A groundbreaking new study has now compared the laughter of chimpanzees, gorillas, bonobos, orangutans and humans. They were able to identify rhythmic similarities in laughter recordings which could shed light on how human speech evolved. Guest: Dr Chiara De Gregorio , a primatologist at the University o...

The Moroccan rapper and filmmaker Mehdi El Youbi was arrested in Casablanca on Monday 13 July. Activists say El Youbi's arrest coincides with Moroccan authorities' intensifying repression of critical voices and the Gen Z protest movement. Omar Radi, an investigative journalist and human rights activist who was previously jailed in Morocco himself, describes El Youbi as "the most outspoken and poli...