Late Night Live - Separate stories podcast
Episodes
John Menadue critiques Australia's media and our relationship with the United States
20 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
John Menadue has been at the heart of Australian public life for over fifty years, working for the Whitlam, Fraser and Hawke governments. He oversaw ...
Are architectural replicas bad taste?
19 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
From Dresden to Notre Dame, rebuilding or replicating in architecture, is never a neutral act. The art of the rebuild is about politics, national ide...
Two years behind bars, Imran Khan remains defiant
19 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Former Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan has spent two years behind bars, sentenced to 14 years on corruption charges. Khan says he's the victim ...
Ian Dunt's UK - Keir Starmer at the White House and will Putin come to the table over Ukraine?
19 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer joined President Donald Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and European leaders to discuss pathways to pea...
History's most unfortunate surnames
18 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The tradition of inheriting your parents' surname is not that old, particularly in the English-speaking world. Surnames only started appearing in Eng...
Most of Tuvalu applied for a new Australian visa; why?
18 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Last month, around 80% of Tuvalu's population balloted for a new Australian visa. The 'Falepili Mobility Pathway' is a response to the erosion of Tuv...
Laura Tingle on the Trump-Putin-Zelenskyy negotiations
18 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Laura Tingle assesses the meeting in Alaska between Presidents Trump and Putin, where Ukraine President Zelenskyy fits in the negotiations, why Europ...
Last letters of French resistance fighters, and what they tell us about living
14 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The last letters of WWII French resistance fighters, before their executions, became important for French morale-boosting and Allied propaganda. The ...
The huge rise of evangelism in Brazil - seeded by American preachers
14 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A new Netflix documentary investigates the evangelical forces behind Jair Bolsanaro in Brazil, and how the seeds of the movement were planted in the ...
Journalists Hanna Rosin and Lauren Ober on seeking truth in Trump's America
13 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Acclaimed US journalists and podcast collaborators with The Atlantic Hanna Rosin and Lauren Ober join David Marr in-studio to discuss the MAGA women ...
Australia's struggle with surging feral deer numbers
12 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Australia's wild deer population is on the rise, but the management of this introduced species remains a vexed issue. In Tasmania and Victoria, deer ...
Why isn't Egypt doing more to help the Palestinians?
12 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi is coming under increasing pressure to take a stronger stance on the atrocities unfolding in Gaza. It has tak...
Bruce Shapiro's USA: Trump's DC takeover, and an electoral map fight in Texas
12 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Trump is taking over the police force of Washington, DC — why? Plus, the battle over electoral distributions in Texas.Guest: Bruce Shapiro, Contr...
Australia recognises Palestinian statehood
11 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Australia will recognise a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly in September, joining the UK, France and Canada. The Australian Prime Ministe...
The first Tasmanians: what emerging evidence tell us about the peoples of long ago
11 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A groundbreaking book collates all that is known about Tasmania's first inhabitants, back to 40,000 years ago, by surveying contemporary scientific e...
One hundred years on Mein Kampf is having a worrying revival
07 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
100 years ago Adolf Hitler wrote Mein Kampf in prison. It would become compulsory reading in Germany, and millions of copies sold around the world. O...
Satyajit Das on the looming US debt crisis
07 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The national debt in the United States now sits at over $USD36 trillion, with a debt-to-GDP ratio around 124 percent – it’s what some economists ...
Politics and pomposity: inside London's exclusive clubs
06 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
London’s exclusive clubs date back hundreds of years and many a secret has been shared in them, from exclusive business deals to plots destined to ...
80 years since Hiroshima the nuclear threat is on the rise
06 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Japan has marked 80 years since the Americans dropped “Little Boy” on the city of Hiroshima which killed 80,000 and changed global power dynamics...
Beef and biosecurity fears: revisiting the mad cow crisis
05 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Australia recently lifted biosecurity import controls placed on US beef that have been in place since a 'mad cow' disease outbreak in the US in 2003....
Thailand and Cambodia's endless border dispute
05 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A fragile ceasefire is holding after the most violent border clashes in more than a decade between Thailand and Cambodia. What is the source of these...
Ian Dunt's UK: Starmer moves on Palestine, but is it enough?
05 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Ian Dunt looks at the backlash to UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer's intention to recognise Palestine if it meets certain conditions, with President Do...
Trump's envoy heads to Russia while the EU blocks Ukraine funding over corruption concerns
04 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff heads to Russia next week for talks with Putin ahead of Trump’s new ceasefire deadline. Meanwhile Ukraine’s govern...
Annabel Crabb's Canberra: lessons from the bridge walk
04 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Politicians seem to be changing their tune after more than 90,000 people marched across the Sydney Harbour Bridge to protest Israel's treatment of Pa...
Late Night Live has a new theme!
04 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
After nearly ten years, Late Night Live has changed its theme music. Composer Elena Kats-Chernin, responsible for previous Late Night Live themes Rus...
The forgotten Chinese passengers on the Titanic
31 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It is little known that when the Titanic, the biggest ocean liner on the seas, sank in 1912, there were eight Chinese passengers on board. Six of the...
Cheap and deadly: the future of drone warfare is already here
31 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Drone warfare and AI are outsmarting traditional large scale military systems. Ukraine and Israel are deploying the new technologies to the greatest ...
Zane Grey's shark-hunting adventures in 1930s Australia
30 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Zane Grey was an American western writer, celebrity and big game-fisherman. In so many ways, his life was larger than most. But it was in Austr...
Why Pompeii keeps revealing new secrets
30 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The largest excavation in a lifetime is underway at the famous archaeological site of Pompeii - the Roman city buried in ash when Mount Vesuvius erup...
The Garden of Eden was in Iraq's marshes – now it’s being destroyed by climate change
29 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Iraq's stunning marshlands are believed to be the location of the biblical Garden of Eden, in ancient Mesopotamia. They were destroyed by Saddam Huss...
What's happened to the Left in Israel?
29 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Israeli Left, once a dominant political and cultural force, has seen its influence wane dramatically over the past two decades. Leading peace eff...
Bruce Shapiro's USA: Trump vs MAGA in Epstein showdown
29 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
There is speculation US President Donald Trump may offer Ghislaine Maxwell a pardon as the Dept of Justice meets with her in private negotiations. Pl...
Fintan O'Toole on Donald Trump's first seven months and Netanyahu's end game
28 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Veteran Irish journalist Fintan O'Toole looks back on the first 7 months of Donald Trump's presidency and examines whether the US Constitution is hol...
Annabel Crabb's Canberra: the Coalition continues to defend Israel's actions in Gaza
28 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As the world reacts to the powerful images of people being starved in Gaza, the Coalition has held fast to the view that Hamas is to blame and Labor ...
John Hewson says we should sack the NACC
24 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Former Liberal leader John Hewson says after two years the National Anti-Corruption Commission has failed in its mission to properly investigate alle...
When President Roosevelt's sons went hunting for the mystical panda
24 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
During the 1920s, dozens of expeditions scoured the Chinese and Tibetan wilderness in search of the panda bear, a beast that many believed did not ex...
Putin's sledgehammer: the rise and fall of the Wagner group
23 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 2023, the disgraced chief of the mercenary Wagner group Yevgeny Prigozhin, took off in his private jet from Moscow airport. The flight did not las...
China's renewable energy domination
23 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In China, more wind turbines and solar panels were installed last year than in the rest of the world combined. Chinese companies are building elect...
The children of Gaza are being starved
23 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
“Everything around people at the moment is death, whether it’s bombs or strikes, children wasting away in front of their eyes from malnourishment...
The US plans to deport Afghan refugees, saying it's safe there now
22 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The United States has terminated the temporary protected status for Afghanistan, stripping protection from deportation from 11,700 Afghans already in...
Ian Dunt's UK: pro-Palestine activists banned, and the push to lower the voting age
22 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It started in 2020 as a small activist group, and is now banned under UK terrorism laws. Palestine Action’s co-founder, Huda Ammori, is challenging...
Should we mourn the death of the chequebook?
22 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Australia will phase out cheque payments and processing by 2030, but most banks and consumers moved on long ago. Cheques have been used for cashless ...
Is Japan really running out of rice?
21 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The price of rice in Japan has doubled in the past year, and the nation's emergency stockpile is dwindling. A poor harvest in 2023 is partly to blame...
Annabel Crabb's Canberra: a record-breaking new parliament
21 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As parliament returns for the first time since the federal election, Annabel Crabb looks at how Labor will use its huge majority.Guest: Annabel Crabb...
Saudi Arabia's alarming increase in drug executions
21 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A new report by Amnesty International shows a startling surge in drug-related executions in Saudi Arabia since they abandoned their moratorium on cap...
The decline of history teaching threatens our future leaders
17 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
History Professor Chris Wallace is worried about the decline in both enrolments in, and the offering of, history and other humanities subjects at Aus...
'Prohibition never works': abortion from Ancient Greece to Roe v Wade
17 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Throughout history, women have found ways to end unwanted and dangerous pregnancies, even in the midst of legal crackdowns and moral panics. From Anc...
The Alaskan tourist who survived 43 days in WA's Great Sandy Desert
16 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In July 1999, a 33-year old Alaskan tourist named Robert Bogucki dumped his bicycle on the side of a remote desert track in Western Australia, and wa...
Can legal action save the planet? Wins and losses in climate litigation
16 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Torres Strait Islanders' case against the Federal Government has been lost, with the Australian Federal Court finding the Government does not o...
The world's richest shipwreck - and the fight over its future
15 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
New archaeological discoveries continue to be made at the site of the San Jose shipwreck, 600 metres under the sea off the coast of Colombia. Describ...
Trump cuts HIV/AIDS funding
15 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As Australia marks 40 years since the introduction of HIV/AIDS testing, global health leaders are sounding the alarm over sweeping HIV funding cuts a...
Bruce Shapiro's America: a war on education
15 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A hundred years on from a landmark Supreme Court case about teaching evolution in American schools, the court paves the way for the Trump administrat...
The genius of feathers - can engineers replicate their design?
14 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Despite ambitious attempts, scientists have never been able to fully replicate the evolutionary wonder of the feather. However, avian inspired de...
Who will build Gaza's "humanitarian city"?
14 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Given a lack of regional cooperation and some members of the IDF refusing to forcibly re-locate Palestinians, how would Trump and Netanyahu realise t...
Annabel Crabb's Canberra: What lobsters can tell us about trade relations
14 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Prime MinisterAnthony Albanese is leading a trade delegation ahead of a meeting with President Xi Jinping. The focus will be on de-carbonising st...
Deep history: an Indigenous way of seeing the past
10 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This nation’s past can be understood a whole lot better if indigenous perspectives on history are listened to. It means considering rock art and ot...
Trump vs Science: Funding cuts and misinformation
10 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Science in the United States is in crisis. The National Science Foundation, a key research funding agency, has suffered devastating funding cuts unde...
How will the Universe end?
09 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
There are plenty of theories about how the universe began. But what about the question of how it will all end? Humanity's final moments could be due ...
Baltic future: why these clever countries are vulnerable, and what that means for the rest of Europe
09 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Baltic countries are stunningly successful, and also right on the frontline of any possible attack from Russia. In fact all Europeans are vulnera...
The traditional owners tracking a disappearing moth
08 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Not long ago, bogong moths were abundant in the caves of the Australian alps during summer, and in towns and cities like Canberra during their Spring...
Filtered urine and sauna suits: the strange world of biohacking
08 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Emboldened by US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr's libertarian "Make America Healthy Again" agenda, the pseudoscience of 'biohacking' is having ...
Ian Dunt's UK: a year of Keir and Labour revolts over welfare cuts
08 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
UK Labour is facing an internal revolt after attempts to cut the welfare budget by more than £5 billion. And, a year on from Keir Starmer's resoundi...
Are progressive elites hypocrites?
07 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
American sociologist Musa al-Gharbi, argues that progressive elites perform their activism with symbolic gestures that don't make a real difference t...
The Yoorrook Justice Commission finds genocide occurred in Victoria
07 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
ABC's Bridget Brennan has been following the work of Victoria's Yoorrook Justice Commission for several years. She surveys the processes that lead to...
AI. Don't believe the hype
03 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AI, we’re told, has the potential to free us from mundane tasks, revolutionise industries, and solve global problems. Linguistics Professor Emily B...
Tracing the trajectory of the Christchurch terrorist
03 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 2019 an Australian white supremacist lifestreamed his shooting rampage through Christchurch mosques. He killed 51 people and injured more than 80 ...
Embracing autarky - the ancient politics of isolation
02 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Right now, the world is experiencing a profound break from the orthodoxy of globalisation. The US has gradually made moves to withdraw itself from th...
A missing Chinese twin
02 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A toddler twin girl was stolen by Chinese officials. She was adopted by a family in Texas. Two decades later, a journalist who traced both girls woul...
Why don't more countries play cricket?
01 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Nobody knows precisely where the game of cricket was born, but test cricket as we know it has been played for nearly 150 years. The so-called gentlem...
The looming struggle over the Dalai Lama's succession
01 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Dalai Lama turns 90 on Sunday. Machinations have been underway for some time to anoint the Dalai Lama who will replace him. The Chinese Governmen...
Bruce Shapiro's USA: Trump's 'big beautiful bill', and NYC's mayoral race shock
01 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Will Trump's 'big beautiful bill' pass by his preferred deadline of July 4th? And what will the Democratic party learn from the success of 33 year-ol...
Matthew Flinders' brother
30 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Samuel Flinders was the de facto astronomer on Matthew Flinders' circumnavigation of Australia. But a family feud meant Samuel was never given due cr...
Breaking the Code: MI6’s First Woman Chief
30 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The first female head of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, often known as MI6, will take the reins in a few months. The chief of the SIS is th...
How bold will Albanese be in his second term?
30 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On the back of a monumental election victory, and with a thumping majority in the parliament, how will Prime Minister Albanese approach politics - bo...
The murderous rampage of Joe and Jimmy Governor in 1900 New South Wales
26 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the winter of 1900, Wiradjuri man Jimmy Governor and his brother Joe murdered nine people across New South Wales, in a rampage that caused panic i...
Cooperating over space resources
26 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Some of the same countries that are in conflict right now are sitting in United Nations meetings together to discuss the future of outer space. St...
The Māori lesbian activist trailblazer who broke academic records
25 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Ngāhuia te Awekōtuku has led such a rich, full life already that her memoir only covers the first 26 years of her life - from 1949-1975. And it’...
Emmanuel Macron: the unlikely European statesman?
25 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Emmanuel Macron, the 25th President of France - a liberal centrist - is in dire political straits at home. President since 2017, his current term wil...
Lost noses from the ancient world
24 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When walking through the ancient Roman Galleries at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, you'll see the bust of ancient philosopher, Socrates. His rugg...
Backstory to Assange's secret deal for freedom
24 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A year ago this week Julian Assange was released from prison after a 14-year fight for freedom. Assange accepted a guilty plea of conspiring to obtai...
Ian Dunt's UK: can the NATO allies trust Trump?
24 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the wake of the US strikes on Iran, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and other traditional allies are unable to offer either criticism or outright s...
Does Israel have its own nuclear weapons?
23 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly accused Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons, presenting it as a major threat to regio...
Why bombing Iran is popular in Israel
23 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Whilst a growing number of Israelis want the war in Gaza to end, there is widespread support for the latest strikes on Iran. Guest: Irris Makler, jo...
MAGA Republicans endorse Trump's Iran strikes
23 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
MAGA Republicans have put aside their staunch isolationist, anti-interventionist positions to offer their enthusiastic support for US President Donal...
Macau, the Portuguese city in southern China
19 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Macau is best known now for its casinos, but it was the first European city in Asia, remained a Portuguese colony for 500 years, and contains many co...
The fallacies of the global fertility crisis
19 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the face of falling fertility rates, the United Nations argues that the real fertility crisis the world faces is not too many babies or not enough...
Kim Il-Sung, North Korea's tyrannical first leader
18 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Kim Il-Sung is the ‘darkest figure in all of Korea’s history’ , according to Seoul-based scholar and author Fyodor Tertitskiy. With access to ...
Lies, spies and scandals: The forgotten 1948 scientific expedition to Arnhem Land
18 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 1948, a group of 17 Australian and American scientists - lead by Adelaide anthropologist Charles Mountford - spent 9 months in remote Arnhem Land,...
Unraveling the mysteries of ancient string writing
17 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Over millennia, humans have been better at inventing ways of writing than remembering how to read what we’ve written. We use marks and pictures and...
Political chaos in the Netherlands
17 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In early June, far right politician Geert Wilders pulled his PVV, Party for Freedom, out of the ruling coalition, in the Netherlands. The government...
Bruce Shapiro's USA: does Trump have a plan for Iran?
17 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
US President Donald Trump has left the G7 in Canada early as conflict between Israel and Iran escalates. Domestically, the nation is reeling after th...
Early Māori were kūmara farmers, not just hunter-gatherers
16 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Kumara or sweet potato originally comes from South America, but how did it become one of the national foods of Aotearoa New Zealand? The Polynesian...
The Iran nuclear deal that Trump ditched
16 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It was one of US President Barack Obama’s key foreign policy achievements back in 2015. The Iran nuclear deal, though far from perfect, prevented ...
Australia to negotiate defence agreement with EU at G7
16 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Whilst Australia is not a G7 member, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is in Canada for the annual G7 summit for a number of "sideline" talks, includin...
From Utopia to the Tate: the art of Emily Kam Kngwarray
12 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Emily Kam Kngwarray, from the Utopia community in the Northern Territory, picked up a paintbrush in her 70s for the first time, and now, her work wil...
US and Latin America - a long and complicated relationship
12 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The history of the United States cannot be told without telling the story of Latin America. Connected through wars, conquests, trade, ideas and polit...
The haka party incident: a flashpoint in 1970s New Zealand race relations
11 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Maori MPs were issued record bans from the New Zealand Parliament recently for their impromptu haka last year protesting a bill to wind back the Trea...
Young men converting to Russian Orthodoxy in the US
11 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Russia and the US have not traditionally been close culturally but there’s a few shifts going on. The Trump administration has a very different re...
The good men who hunted down the perpetrators of the Myall Creek massacre
10 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
There are not many colonial heroes in Australia's frontier wars, but some emerged after the unprovoked 1838 massacre of at least 28 Wirrayaraay peopl...
Bruce Shapiro's America: Trump sends troops to LA protests
10 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As protests over immigration raids continue in Los Angeles, why did the Trump administration send in the National Guard, defying Californian authorit...