Late Night Live - Separate stories podcast

The people of Japan have been shocked by the assassination of former Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe. Still an enormously influential figure in Japanese politics, he is also being mourned across the globe as a great international leader. Political violence is rare in Japan, but Japan expert Roger Pulvers puts this assassination in an historical context.

After surviving years of political scandals, Boris Johnson has finally succumbed to pressure to resign as British Prime Minister, after over 50 government ministers quit their posts in protest. Is this really bye-bye Boris? If so, what kind of Britain does he leave in his wake?

While Crikey's Bernard Keane has welcomed the decision to drop the prosecution of Witness K's lawyer Bernard Collaery, he says there is unfinished business which should be the subject of a federal ICAC.

The beloved koala was originally called the New Holland sloth. To the first European colonists, Australian wildlife was bewildering at best. But over the past two centuries a host of scientists and enthusiasts have transformed our relationship with the continent's animals.

One of the most significant whistleblowers of our time, 91-year-old Daniel Ellsberg, whose leak of the Pentagon Papers exposed US government lies and helped end the Vietnam War, speaks out in defence of Julian Assange and free speech. He argues that the only way for Julian Assange to get out of Belmarsh Prison, even to live, is for the Australian government to advocate now on his behalf.

The first ever international prison radio conference has just been held in Norway, bringing together representatives of prison radio shows from 19 countries, including Australia, where Indigenous people continue to be grossly over-represented in prison populations.

What to watch on NITV this NAIDOC week. SBS Director of Indigenous Content outlines some of television you can catch on NITV and SBS on demand this week - from crime thriller True Colours to the documentary series Off Country and Big Mob Brekky.

The Lismore-based national newspaper, the Koori Mail, is Australia's only fully indigenous owned and managed paper. When Lismore was flooded in March, the Koori Mail staff went above and beyond. That's now been recognised with a NAIDOC award for Innovation. 

As climate and environment protest action steps up in the wake of more floods on the East Coast of Australia, state governments are cracking down on protesters with new laws in NSW and Tasmania.

Gun rights, abortion, now the environment. The US Supreme Court has curtailed the Environmental Protection Agency's power to regulate carbon pollution, slowing America's ability to deal with the climate crisis.

The #MeToo movement revealed the very ugly side of Hollywood's misogyny with hundreds of claims of sexual harassment and assault made not just against Harvey Weinstein but many other men working in the industry. What is surprising is that the film industry started out with many women filmmakers. It was only once the industry really started to make money that were women pushed aside. Can they now muscle their way back into more positions of influence?

NSW authorities are racing to stop the deadly varroa mite from spreading across borders and wiping out the country's European honey bees. Will the arrival of the varroa destructor on our shores prompt a deeper conversation, about strengthening the resilience of our bee populations and perhaps even finding ways to live with the mite?

The Prime Minister is heading back to Australia after his attendance at the NATO Summit in Madrid, and a visit to Ukraine at the invitation of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Albanese's European tour has been widely touted as a success, but there are concerns Australia's new closer relationship with NATO could present us with some difficulties to navigate.

In its 90 years, the ABC has collected the sounds and sights of Australia from the centre of power in Canberra to the most remote Indigenous communities, documenting both everyday life and the moments that changed Australia. Now the ABC has announced that 58 staff may lose their jobs. Two archivists explain the importance of the ABC archive and the skills archivists bring to their profession that cannot be replaced.

John Pickup started his career at the ABC in the mailroom in Sydney, but quickly moved on to the sound effects department. He worked in television on the first broadcast as well as on the Melbourne Olympic Games. But he returned to his first love radio and went to on to work across the country in places like Broken Hill, Darwin and Mackay. To mark the 90th birthday of the ABC, he shares just some of the many stories from his brilliant ABC career.

One of the lesser known Greek islands is Kalymnos, on the eastern side of the Aegean. Last weekend the island had a significant event – the launch of a Greek language edition of a book that was first published in English in 1955.  The local population has only recently learnt of the existence of 'Mermaid singing', an account of life on Kalymnos. It was written by Australian author Charmian Clift, who spent time there with her husband George Johnston and their two children, before they relocated to the island of Hydra.  

As Myanmar descends deeper into a violent and brutal civil war, the plans by the military junta to execute two pro democracy figures, and place former leader Aung Sang Suu Kyi in solitary confinement is likely to inflame popular uprising against its rule.

The Scots' news push for independence, the Tories cop a hiding in two byelections and the Northern Ireland protocol bill passes the House of Commons.

In the era of fervent settlement activity around the Pacific rim - Australia, New Zealand, California - landscape photographers were key to the colonial exercise, a new book argues.  They showed usually empty landscapes devoid of indigenous people.  They contributed to prospective settlers' interest in new lands.  And they built an emotional attachment to places.  This all strengthened the settler sense of territorialism. 

A record shareholder action is underway in Japan as major energy companies face climate-focussed resolutions demanding more transparency around how they will reduce their emissions.

Women have taken to the streets across the 'land of the free' after the Supreme Court handed down its landmark decision eliminating the constitutional right to protection that had existed for nearly 50 years. Bruce Shapiro discusses what the controversial ruling means not only for American women, but for American democracy.

Australian author and essayist Frank Moorhouse died on the weekend. He was author of 18 books over his long and illustrious career and won the Miles Franklin award for his book Dark Palace which was the second book in what was known as 'The Edith Trilogy'. The series followed the life of career diplomat Edith Campbell Berry from her work at the League of Nations in the 1920s to her later career in Canberra. In this interview Frank and Phillip discuss the final book in the trilogy, Cold Light.

Recent reports by Oxfam have revealed that the wealth of the world's 10 richest men has doubled since the pandemic began. They also estimate that a new billionaire was created every 30 hours during the pandemic, while a million people could fall into extreme poverty at same rate in 2022. Tackling these unprecedented levels of inequality will require the courage to 'break free from the narrow straitjacket of extreme neoliberalism'.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is in Madrid for the Nato summit, but how will he navigate the tension between the G7's push-back against China's influence in the world and Australia's economic relationship with the global powerhouse?

The modern conservation movement only really began in the late 19th century and since then, has gone through many shifts in its quest to protect animals. It's history is filled with equally passionate and flawed figures.

The eminent Harvard historian says we came inches from disaster when Russian forces shelled a nuclear power plant in Ukraine. In a timely new book he looks at the history of nuclear accidents and the near inevitability of another Chernobyl, and argues that we must remember this history when contemplating the future of the industry.

When is locally made and funded film and television ‘Australian' enough?  And who decides?

Australia is acquiring eight nuclear powered submarines from the United States under AUKUS. The agreement is still being worked out but what are the pros and cons of stepping across the nuclear threshold?

Foreign minister Penny Wong visits the Solomon Islands to hold talks with Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare while the US discusses their special military relationship with the Marshall Islands.

Fairy tales tell us the wolf is a bad guy who wants to eat you. But following the rewilding of the Grey Wolf into Yellowstone National Park and some US states, the canis lupus is back, but not everyone's happy.  

Australia needs to reset its whole engagement with the Pacific, and a set of papers released today steps out how that might be done. The papers, from Australian think tank AP4D, cover climate change, economy, digital and security.

If you think Australia's economy is looking worse for wear, the picture in the United States looks even bleaker, and the 'r' word is being tossed around - recession. Meanwhile, Trump's vice president Mikle Pence has been painted a hero at the third round of the Watergate-style hearings into the January 6 Capitol riots.

Four thousand Australian soldiers in World War II who signed up for service never fired a weapon. They were called ‘aliens' or ‘enemy aliens' - non-British subjects who, despite being passionate about wanting to fight Hitler, had to battle for the right to fight for Australia against the Nazis.

Across the globe, migrant workers are more likely to get underpaid but various states and cities are introducing new laws and innovations to solve the problem.

The final Senate lineup is now known, with the last of the votes counted. The newest enators include a former Afghan refugee from Perth, for Labor; and a Victorian conspiracy theorist for the United Australia Party. The Energy Security Board has recommended a new capacity mechanism. And school chaplains are no longer compulsory.

How is it that most of us have not known the name of a man who broke out of Auschwitz as a 19 year old, and was able to tell the world about the terrible, terrible things that were happening there.  He was Rudolf Vrba, although he was born Walter Rosenberg.  A new book, instantly a bestseller, tells his story. It's described by historian and author Antony Beevo as 'an immediate classic of Holocaust literature'. 

Journalist and academic Margaret Simons reveals why she is more depressed about the state of Australian journalism now than at any other point during her 40-year career, and what an overhaul of our press might involve.

Inaugural Shackleton Medal winner Dr. Heïdi Sevestre ‘reads' glaciers from one of the world's global warming tipping points.

Since the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan, life for writers and journalists has become increasingly risky. PEN International has helped many escape the oppressive regime, but ultimately these writers want to be home.

Ian Dunt brings us up to date on the Northern Ireland Protocol saga that threatens to spark an EU/UK trade war, and the 11th-hour intervention that halted the UK's controversial plan to send asylum-seekers to Rwanda.

Dom Phillips, the Brazil-based British journalist who is missing in the Amazon, feared murdered, was a much appreciated guest on this program. He appeared twice.   Dom has disappeared with his Brazilian colleague, Bruno Pereira.  Some of their belongings have been found.  Dom was writing a book about saving the Amazon.  His Brazilian mother-in-law, Maria Lucia Faria, has implored the public to not let Dom's death be in vain.   Keep the spotlight on the Amazon, she said.  In that spirit, we are replaying you Dom's last interview with us, in October 2019, in which he explains the politics and vested interests in the Amazon.

From coconuts to call centres, and kava to clothing: is it greater trade with the Pacific that's needed, rather than aid? Might more investment and trade be the key to strengthening Pacific island nations, and Australia's ties with the region? We discuss what's possible, and what's stopping more trade commitments.  

Devastating testimony from some of Trump's former top officials reveals what occurred on Election Day 2020, but it remains unclear whether Trump knew his election claims were false, or was convinced they were true. The point could be a lynchpin in any future prosecution.

It's one of the world's most important, and miraculous, lakes; the lifeblood of the ancient Kingdom of Angkor and the millions of people who still subsist on its floodplains. Yet Cambodia's Tonle Sap Lake is dying and, with it, a way of life. 

The federal election has been said to have plunged the Liberal Party into an 'existential crisis', after it lost a number of its heartland seats. In this discussion we go right back to 1944 to look at the party that Sir Robert Menzies founded, to discover where and how the Liberal Party has strayed from its roots, and what the future might hold for Australia's most successful political party.

This year marks the 200th anniversary of the Frenchman Jean-François Champollion's decipherment of hieroglyphs and 100 years since the British archaeologist Howard Carter found King Tutankhamen's tomb filled with all those bewitching treasures in the Valley of the Kings. To celebrate, three Ancient Egyptian scholars dust off their boots and down tools to discuss their incredible discoveries and what life is like as a contemporary archaeologist.

In a wonderful book, Emma Smith explores the many functionalities that books have held through the ages, as props, tools for propaganda, as construction materials and even as shields. She explores the idea that books do have their own "bookhood" beyond the words inside them.

A huge data leak, being called the ‘Xinjiang Police Files', has revealed details of thousands of Uyghurs locked up in so-called re-education camps in Xinjiang.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has promised to hold a referendum on the Voice to Parliament in his first term. Where will this process start? And can the Federal Government learn anything from the reconciliation and treaty processes that have already begun in Victoria.

Throughout history the centre of gravity in Budapest and among Hungarians has shifted between East and West - culturally, politically, emotionally.

As Bougainville inches its way closer to independence from Papua New Guinea, mining companies from around the world are manoevering to get first dibs on the rich seams of gold and copper on the island. A new report has found that some mining companies are making payments to local landholders, to strengthen their prospects. And that two different companies recommended to the new Bougainvillean government that mining rights be issued to offshore companies in secret locations. The report, titled Scramble for Resources: The International Race for Bougainville's Mineral Wealth, is by the Jubilee Australia Research Centre.