Saturday Extra - Separate Stories Podcast

Emmanuel Macron is under pressure as France’s population moves further to the right ahead of presidential elections next year.

As talk turned to finance at the COP26 summit, Australia's Clean Energy Finance Corporation hosted an event looking at the role that green banks can play in the global transition to net zero. With one of the oldest and biggest green banks in the world, is this one area where Australia is leading the way?

On Tuesday Ethiopia declared a nationwide state of emergency amid fears that forces from the northern Tigray region were considering marching on the capital Addis Ababa. It marks an escalation of Ethiopia’s year-long civil conflict. What will it take to put an end to the bloodshed?

A rare first edition copy of The Vampre has been found hidden in a University of Queensland Library. Published in 1819 it is considered one of the first vampire stories in the English language. How did the book end up in Australia?

As our relationship with China sours, Australia is looking to India to become our next great and powerful friend. Meanwhile, an important ASEAN summit reveals how our neighbours are reacting to shifting power dynamics in the region. And as we head into COP26, how might climate commitments shape geopolitics into the future?

Jeff Horwitz from the Wall Street Journal was one of the first to report on Facebook's leaked internal documents  - which still have not been made public - and has published widely on issues arising from the documents concerning disinformation, monitoring, secret elite accounts and the mental health problems platforms are causing some teenage girls. 

The Energy Security Board’s recommendations for the redesign of the national electricity market have been approved by National Cabinet, and implementation is now underway. Before she steps down as Chair of the ESB on the 31st of October, Dr Kerry Schott joins us to discuss the proposed changes and Australia’s path to decarbonisation more broadly.

The scrapping of the contract for French submarines has left Australia’s shipbuilding out at sea, and there are more questions than answers as Australia looks to the future with an ageing fleet of Collins class submarines.

Peter FitzSimons joins us to talk about his new book, The Incredible Life of Hubert Wilkins, Australia’s Greatest Explorer, a rollicking yarn about the truly remarkable adventures of a bloke at the centre of so many important events last century. From Arctic expeditions to the battlefields of WW1, and meeting Lenin in Russia. Who was this guy and why don’t we know more about him? 

This Saturday marks the 30th Anniversary of the Paris Peace Agreements, which aimed to bring lasting democracy to the Cambodian people after years of devastation under the The Khmer Rouge, invasion by the Vietnamese and then Civil war again. 

Australia has experienced an unprecedented tech boom in the last ten years, creating around 100 tech companies valued at over $100 million. Now, a new industry group argues that more action is needed if the sector is to reach its full potential, employing one million people by 2030 and contributing $250 billion to Australia’s GDP.

The countdown is on to the 2021 UN climate change conference (COP26), which begins in Glasgow at the end of this month. It’s shaking up national and international politics, but what actually is COP26 and what does it hope to achieve?

As Delta belatedly spreads through PNG, the country’s government seems reluctant to take the strict measures it did to contain the last strain. With one of the lowest vaccination rates in the world, and a fragile health system, why such complacency from the government, and what can Australia do right now to help?   GUESTS: Jonathan Pryke from the Lowy Institute and Natalie Whiting, ABC PNG Correspondent

From the outside, the study of anthropology might seem obscure and irrelevant, but editor-at-large, US of the Financial Times, Gillian Tett, argues that the skills she learned at university, and studying marriage rituals in Soviet Tajikistan, have helped her predict and understand the 2008 financial crash, the rise of Donald Trump, the COVID-19 pandemic, the surge in sustainable investing and the digital economy.

Ahead of the National’s party room meeting on Sunday we explore the views of rural and regional communities on net zero targets. Guest: Gabrielle Chan - Guardian Australia’s rural and regional editor and author of “Rusted off - Why country Australia is fed up”

In a rapid escalation of outsourcing work, the Australian Government spent more than a billion dollars with top consultancy firms last year.  Instead, should this have been spent employing thousands more public servants? 

An important part of the transition to a low carbon future is to improve the sustainability of new and existing housing. While Australia has been a world leader in improving the sustainability of its commercial buildings, the residential transition has lagged.

In the wake of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, analyst James Dorsey argues that questions about the reliability of the US as a security guarantor, and doubts about another powerful external ally taking its place, are driving some surprising efforts by Gulf states to dial down regional tensions and put sectarianism on the backburner.

You'll have plenty to keep you entertained and informed this October with great recommendations from Dr Lauren Richardson, ANU's Department of International Relations and Director of the ANU Japan Institute; and Bill Wyman, American journalist and former assistant managing editor at NPR, and former arts editor of Salon.

You’ve heard of the Cambridge Five spies but there was another spy, perhaps even more daring and damaging to western interests.  Author and Financial Times journalist Simon Kuper joins us to talk about his new book The Happy Traitor: Spies, Lies and Exile in Russia that tells the extraordinary story of George Blake.