Late Night Live - Separate Stories Podcast

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. 

The public hearings of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol begin this week, eight days before the 50th anniversary of the Watergate scandal that led to the hearings that revealed the 'Smoking Gun' tape and brought down Nixon. Could the Jan 6 hearings make as big of a splash?

So many historical accounts have missed extraordinary women, whose lives have not been celebrated in the way they should have been.  But a feisty Australian character has been unearthed. Rachel Kennedy belies many of the stereotypes of her time.  She was a 19th century brumby hunter, nurse, bushrangers’ ally, and 'troublemaker for good'.

The war in Ukraine has exposed the extent to which Russian money has infiltrated the UK. When did Britain start to become the world’s ‘butler’, servicing wealthy elites without asking questions? Oliver Bullough exposes how Britain’s lip service to fair play and the rule of law has long belied a more sinister reality.

Bernard Keane discusses the challenges facing the new Labor government including gas prices, industrial relations and mending relationships in the Pacific and now Indonesia

In a rather unusual move, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has promised to bring imperial units of measurement back into British shops as a gift for the Queen on her platinum jubilee. Behind this provocative proposal is a rich history of measurement and how it has been used for centuries as a means of making sense of our world.

Lech Blaine spent five weeks on the campaign trail and met some very interesting people on his journey through Queensland in particular. He introduces us to some of the swinging voters and why some people were changing from voting for One Nation to voting for the Greens. He has written a colourful cover piece for The Monthly which is called "Teal and Loathing".

They were erroneously referred to as the ‘drug grannies’. In 1978, two American women in their late 50s/early 60s, life companions and not a grandchild between them, were charged with importing into Australia a two-tonne load of cannabis resin, or hashish, in a campervan.  Vera Hays and Florice Bessire had unwittingly, according to former journalist Sandi Logan, who has stayed with their story for 40 years, become drug mules for Vera's charismatic nephew.  The pair from Oregon had never been overseas before, and found themselves on a hair-raising journey through Europe, Afghanistan and India, to Australia.