The Radio National Hour

Nearly 17 years after his untimely death a new biopic celebrating Michael Jackson’s life and music is raking in millions at the box-office. But this shiny, feel good film makes no mention of the child abuse allegations and bizarre behaviour that tainted his later years, prompting some to ask whether - at the end of the day - it's impossible to cancel ‘The King of Pop’. If you’re a fan of Japanese...

The Antisemitism and Social Cohesion Royal Commission has handed down its interim findings, calling for better police protection of Jewish communities and events and a review of counterterrorism protocols. The CEO of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies Michele Goldman says its a good first step.   It was the play-thing of a cashed up Kingdom, now after tipping billions into the breakaway golf tournam...

Global alliances continue to strain under the weight of tensions in the middle east with the United Arab Emirates announcing its withdrawal from the OPEC oil group, a victory for the ‘drill-baby-drill’ club, but what will it mean for your petrol prices?    Two new reports from our AUKUS partners - the US and Great Britain - have cast fresh doubt on their capacity to deliver on their commitments to...

Today marks three decades years since a gunman opened fire at Tasmania’s historic Port Arthur jail killing 35 people. It was an unfathomable tragedy forever etched into the psyche of a nation. In the wake of this horror, we’ve learnt how to mourn and honour the dead, but we struggle with how to speak - or not to speak - of the perpetrator. In 2012 Tom Teeves lost his son in a mass shooting in Colo...

They said it couldn’t be done. On Sunday not one but TWO runners completed the London marathon in under two hours. It's a feat of human endurance for sure, but what they were wearing on their feet also played a starring role. Australian and world champion marathon runner Robert De Castella reflects on far the technology has come. The Doomsday Clock is closer to midnight than it's ever been with de...

Does the gamified footage we see of missile strikes and drone attacks lead to a detached view of what war is really like? This ANZAC day, soldiers who've lived the real fear and horror of the battlefield are angered by the sanitised imagery we are served up on our screens.  Google’s former head of AI ethics, Margaret Mitchell explains why Silicon Valley’s claim that dangerous chatbot behaviour can...

Sting, the rock legend who fronted The Police, is now in Brisbane performing a musical he wrote based on his childhood experiences in a 1950s English, shipbuilding town. The Last Ship takes Sting back to the yard where his father and grandfather worked right up until it's last days.  One of Australia’s leading experts on Motor Neurone Disease, Dr Dominic Rowe, discusses his new research revealing...

'A very dark day' — that’s how people living with disability are describing the cuts to the National Disability Insurance Scheme unveiled today. The government plans to kick at least 160,000 participants off the scheme, changes that will save billions, but at what cost to a cherished and life-saving social insurance project?   The US President Donald Trump and his sons have already pocketed hundre...

It's one of Labor’s crowning achievements but the world leading National Disability Insurance Scheme has become unwieldy and unaffordable. As the government looks to find massive savings in next month's budget, where are the kindest cuts? Dr Sam Bennett, Disability Program Director with the Grattan Institute shares his ideas.  Ten years ago Dr Kakenya Ntaiya shared a story of extraordinary bravery...

British PM Keir Starmer’s leadership is hanging by a thread after revelations that disgraced former British ambassador to the US Peter Mandelson failed a key security test even before he was dispatched to America. As he prepares to front the House of Commons, will Sir Keir survive this moment of peril? In his latest books - ‘The Challenge of the Future’ and ‘For the People ’ British philosopher A....

A ceasefire has been declared in Lebanon as a fragile peace holds with Iran, is this enough to bring everyone back to the negotiating table? Former US diplomat Alan Eyre helped to broker the Obama era deal, he questions whether this administration is really in it for the long haul. Acclaimed Finnish-Estonian writer Sofi Oksanen lives with a voice in her head, it belongs to her great-aunt who lost...

A former US fighter pilot could be sent back to the country of his birth after the Federal Court rejected his bid to avoid extradition. Dan Duggan, who’s now an Australian citizen, is accused of unlawfully training Chinese military pilots - an offence that carries a penalty of 65 years in prison. His lawyer Howard Adams says the Australian government has been waging a fight for his extradition on...

Against the backdrop of the Ukraine war, the asymmetric conflict in the Middle East and a volatile US administration Australia’s Defence Minister Richard Marles will tomorrow unveil the latest National Defence Strategy. Professor Ian Langford says there's an arms race underway across the world and its vital that Australia develops its own sovereign defence capabilities.     Everybody’s a winner, a...

A blockade to end a blockade has begun in the Strait of Hormuz with the United States vowing to prevent ships coming to or from Iranian ports. According to military analysts the strategy could bring Iran back to the negotiating table but Al Jazeera Tehran correspondent Ali Hashem says the regime has shown a high tolerance for pain so far.  Why has one of the world’s most powerful AI companies deci...

US President Donald Trump threatened hell, fire and fury if Iran didn’t open the Strait of Hormuz - now he says the US is going to block the shipping lane. Maritime security analyst and former Australian naval officer Jennifer Parker says its a strategy that could work.  As Hungary’s election results came in Viktor Orban was quick to see the writing on the wall - conceding defeat early in the piec...

Artemis II is hurtling back to earth - after a voyage that has awed the world - but the most risky part of the mission lies right at the end. Space scientist Jordan Bimm is holding his breath hoping the Orion capsule’s heat shield does its job on re-entry.  It's not exactly peace in the Middle East - but a shaky ceasefire is in place in Iran at least. And while Donald Trump was dropping f-bombs an...

In an onslaught lasting just ten minutes, Israeli air strikes killed at least two-hundred and fifty people in Lebanon yesterday, prompting international outrage and placing the fragile ceasefire with Iran in jeopardy. Amidst the crisis the charity World Central Kitchen is feeding 25 thousand people a day. It's head chef is Aline Kamakian and she says the bombs are dropping within meters of their k...

Stewart Kenny was one of the pioneers of modern sports betting but now says he wishes he’d done more to prevent gambling addiction. He says the government's new gambling advertising reforms are a win for the industry.  US Vice-president JD Vance has jetted into Budapest ahead of Hungary’s elections to support the country’s long-serving leader Viktor Orban. With polls suggesting Europe’s nationalis...

Victoria Cross recipient and former SAS soldier Ben Roberts-Smith has been charged with five counts of the war crime of murder. Chris Masters was one of two investigative journalists whose reporting laid out in painstaking detail, Roberts-Smith’s alleged murder of unarmed Afghans.  Zohran Mamdani promised big changes for the Big Apple … becoming the youngest ever and first Muslim elected as the ci...

As President Donald Trump and his Defence Secretary Peter Hegseth continue to invoke God and promise to rain down hell in their war against Iran, Pope Leo has called on the powerful to lay down their weapons in his Easter Sunday mass. As he nears his first year as leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, the quiet American is growing louder in his opposition to the Trump administration’s aggre...

The US President has delivered a baffling and bombastic address to the nation, declaring mission almost accomplished in Iran and calling on nations like Australia to go get their own oil from The Strait of Hormuz. Historian Stephen Wertheim says it was classic Trump fare, light on details and answers to the big question, like when will this war be over? It’s the stuff Hollywood blockbusters are ma...

As conflicts continue to rage in Ukraine, Myanmar, Sudan  and the middle-east, children are suffering in record numbers. With warring parties seemingly showing scant regard for the innocent, UNICEF’s global spokesman James Elder says the global framework to protect our children is failing. The Prime Minister is urging us to think about what we can do for our country in this time of crisis, some st...

Russia suddenly finds itself awash with the profits of war, after the US partially lifted sanctions on its oil to help alleviate the energy crisis brought on by the war in the middle-east. Billions are now flowing into the Kremlin's coffers, averting a looming budget crisis and potentially funding its war with Ukraine for years.  For three decades beginning in the 1980s Sri Lanka’s government was...

Israel has announced an expansion of its invasion of Lebanon, declaring it will launch a Gaza style blitz in the country's south to create a buffer zone from the Israeli border to the Litani river.  With the US becoming further entrenched in the war with Iran and the price of oil continuing to climb, China looks like it could emerge the winner from this global crisis, having spent billions on home...

It’s been described as a war of choice but as US President Donald Trump is discovering and the world is suffering through, the war in Iran won’t follow America or Israel’s timetable. The ABC’s global affairs editor, Laura Tingle and the North America correspondent for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald Michael Koziol analyse the first month of the war.  ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’ —...