Late Night Live - Separate stories podcast
Episodes
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...
David Runciman thinks children should have the right to vote
09 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Political philosopher David Runciman sits down with David Marr to discuss why democracy is in such a state of disrepair, and the scintillating idea h...
Land power: who has it, who doesn't, and how it will shape our future
09 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Over the past two centuries, nearly every society has reallocated land ownership and property rights. If humanity is to flourish over the next centur...
How the US got so divided
05 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
An anthropologist set out to talk to his fellow Americans, to try and understand why so many fear people who are different to them. Guest: Anand Pand...
What is China's agenda in Myanmar?
05 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It’s just over two months since an earthquake hit Myanmar, where more than three thousand people died. Just after the earthquake, the country's Mil...
PIE: the world's most important language
04 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The English language, and Sanskrit, have some elements in common. So do Hindustani and Spanish. And Russian and Greek. They all, it is now becomin...
Haiti hires ex-Blackwater CEO Erik Prince to deal with armed gangs
04 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Authorities are so concerned about gang violence in Haiti, they’ve hired Erik Prince, a private military contractor who founded Blackwater, the co...
Bodypedia: who named the parts of our anatomy?
03 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The human body is made up of thousands of intricate components - each with their own medical name. But who are the people behind these names? For the...
Water is the new battlefront for India and Pakistan
03 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Water and the rivers that carry it are becoming increasingly prized. Our warming planet, increased droughts and burgeoning populations make control ...
Ian Dunt's UK: Britain boosts defence spending
03 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Britain will increase its defence spending from 2.3% of GDP per annum to 2.7% by 2027, but is all the talk of "war-readiness" proportionate at this m...
Have food critics become too nice?
02 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Food criticism has changed a lot since John Lethlean wrote for publications like The Age and The Australian. Over a 25 year career, John chronicled A...
The rise and rise of the comfort class in the US
02 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Right now, there are 902 billionaires in the US and almost half of the representatives in Congress are millionaires. Described as ‘ the comfort cla...
Bernard Keane's Canberra: Albanese dismisses US call to up defence spending
02 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth calls on Australia to significantly increase its military spending, journalist Bernard Keane asks if the US rema...
Merle Oberon's false identity
29 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Hollywood actress Merle Oberon was born in poverty in India. To make it in the movies, first in London and then Hollywood, she had to invent a new li...
National security - how it started and how it's changed
29 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It was Franklin Roosevelt who came up with the notion of national security, to persuade Americans to get involved in World War ll. His pitch was that...
The engineer who derailed Tenerife’s port plans to save an undersea paradise
28 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 2016, Spanish civil engineer and avid scuba diver, Carlos Mallo Molina quit his job to protest the plans for a huge recreational boat and ferry te...
Abalone cultural heritage acknowledged in Tasmania
28 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
100 words plus Guests name & book
Feasting Like a Roman: The tastes of the ancient elite
27 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
One of the world's oldest surviving cookbooks is a collection of recipes from ancient Rome called De Re Coquinaria (“On the Topic of Cooking”). W...
The money behind the Enhanced Games - an "Olympics on steroids"
27 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In May 2026, a resort in Las Vegas will host the inaugural Enhanced Games, where athletes will be free to use performance enhancing drugs. The contro...
Bruce Shapiro's America: Trump's deportations campaign
27 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Trump administration wants to send a group of migrants to war torn South Sudan. Some say it's to instil fear into would-be US immigrants. Guest: ...
Late Night Live farewells Laura Tingle
26 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
After 30 years of appearances on Late Night Live - spanning nine Australian Prime Ministers - Laura Tingle bids farewell to LNL as its political corr...
Hunting and gathering wild food in New Zealand
22 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Terressa Kollat is a New Zealand hunter, diver, fisher and gatherer of wild food, with many millions of views on Tik Tok. She grew up looking after l...
Possible Burrup gas extension and the rock art that might be at risk
22 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
May 31 is the due date for a Federal Government decision on granting another 40 years to Woodside's controversial Northwest Shelf gas operations on t...
How can societal collapses of the past guide us in these uncertain times
21 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We're living in unusual times, with political history being made every week, the seemingly imminent collapse of a certain global super power and seri...