Saturday Extra - Separate Stories Podcast

Chinese researchers have announced a successful small-scale test of technology that aims to one day wirelessly transmit solar power from outer space to Earth. Other countries are also in the race to develop solar power in space – how does it work and could it help solve our future renewable energy needs?

Researchers in the US undertook a study where they paid a group of regular Fox News viewers to switch over to CNN for a month. Some of the results were very surprising.

This week health ministers from the G20 met and created a new monetary fund that will power research into pandemic preparedness. Here in Australia the new Albanese government has committed to a new Centre for Disease Control.  Are we doing enough to prepare for inevitable?

How can Australia and its allies walk the tightrope of maintaining diplomatic relations and trade with China while continuing to contain its ambitions with Taiwan, and the South China Sea?  And what lessons from history can help to inform the decisions we make? 

The US Supreme Court has overturned the 50 year old legal decision, making it the responsibility of individual states to decide if abortion is legal.

How has food shaped us as a nation and what does it say about contemporary Australia?

This month on Tackling Transitions: Victoria’s largest, new solar suburb and town centre which has dealt with a maze of transmission and regulatory issues to include rooftop solar into the suburb’s design right from the start. Plus, what significant renewable projects are in the pipeline?

How would transnational regulation of the global internet work? And is it possible for technology to be a digital public good and serve the world equally.

The Australian Tax Office has issued warnings that it intends to crackdown on "washing machine" payments from family trusts to beneficiaries. And the head Treasury, Dr Stephen Kennedy, indicated in a recent speech that there should by closer scrutiny of tax planning by individuals and businesses. Is copious tax planning an affront to a fair tax system?

Both the Ukrainians and Russians are reaching the point of operational exhaustion with spent ammunition and mounting human losses. But Russian forces have learnt lessons from earlier failures and are making ground in the Luhansk Pocket. 

Nadeem Shehzad and his brother Saud live in the Muslim quarter of Delhi and run a soap dispenser business, but their true passion is caring for birds. For almost 20 years, the brothers have been rescuing black kites and painstakingly nursing them back to health. The documentary All That Breathes captures the densely populated city, full of creatures and rife with tensions and the quiet dedication of Nadeem and Saud.

A new book by Kerry Brown Professor of Chinese Studies and Director of the Lau China Institute, at King's College, London explores how Xi Jian Ping's political power works – his rise to power and how he is part of part of a tradition of Chinese leaders carrying on the aspirations of the Chinese communist party

Elon Musk has ordered Tesla workers back to office, but other companies are happy with a remote workforce. What does this all mean for the future of work, and where might we be in two years time?

The new Australian Curriculum was endorsed by education ministers in April 2022. Schools can begin teaching the content from next year, after a long deadlock over the proposed content. David de Carvalho, CEO of the Australian Curriculum Assessment Reporting Authority, discusses a "more stripped-back and teachable curriculum" that supports deeper conceptual understanding and aims to improve performance.

There are reports that unaccompanied women and children fleeing Ukraine are falling prey to human traffickers, however many are finding safe refugee with concerned European families.

Stay entertained and informed with great recommendations from Jonathan Pearlman, editor of Australian Foreign Affairs and world editor of The Saturday Paper, and Justin Burke, the Lowy Institute's 2022 Thawley Scholar and Program Coordinator for Foreign and Security Policy at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Canberra.

What was the Debney Peace, when and where was it negotiated, and why is it nationally significant in 21st-century Australia? Historian Tom Griffiths discusses this little-known negotiated truce in the frontier war of Queensland's channel country.

On a recent road trip around the UK, The Atlantic’s Tom McTague discovered a country that was struggling in its new post Brexit economy.  We talk to him about his findings and the economic pressures facing Boris Johnson

How might former university vice chancellor Glyn Davis steer and shape Australia's bureaucracy after the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese appointed him to head the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet?

Head of Seven West media James Warburton wants TV ratings overhauled and says Australian television stations need more prominence on smart televisions.