At age nine, Kbora Ali arrived in Australia as an Afghan refugee after her family fled Taliban rule. Less than a decade later, she became the first Afghan woman to join the Australian Army.

In this deeply personal conversation, Kbora reflects on her journey from Afghanistan and Pakistan to suburban Adelaide, the challenges of growing up Hazara, and her determination to serve the country that gave her family safety and a future.

She speaks to Hamish Macdonald and Waleed Aly candidly about belonging, identity, military life, and the deeply difficult choice she made to remove her headscarf when she first arrived at Kapooka. 

Now an Air Force flying officer, and co-author, along with her sister,  of her new memoir First of Her Kind, Kabora shares a story that sits at the intersection of migration, service, multicultural Australia and the enduring consequences of war.

Guest: Kbora Ali, Air Force flying officer and co-author of First of Her Kind.

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Nobel Peace laureate and Rappler founder Maria Ressa sits down with Hamish McDonald at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas in Sydney to make the case that the algorithms in your pocket, not any one leader, are manufacturing the conditions for authoritarian rule worldwide. 

Ressa says 74 per cent of the world now lives under authoritarian rule, that only a quarter of the open web is still open, and that most internet traffic is now non-human. 

She lays out an "authoritarian stack": Peter Thiel bankrolling Donald Trump and JD Vance, Palantir winning a US $10 billion military contract, and Silicon Valley firms wiring themselves into state power.

Closer to home, Ressa questions Australia's push for so-called sovereign artificial intelligence, and asks whether the ABC should feed its audio archive to Anthropic to train American models, a deal she calls a "Faustian bargain". 

She also talks to press freedom, big tech starving newsrooms of revenue, and on whether journalism can survive at all. 

Guest: Maria Ressa, Rappler founder, Nobel Laureate and journalist

Mentioned in this Episode: 

Is a unified Korea a lost cause? Justice Michael Kirby has hope, Global Roaming

Helen Clark defends Fauci pleading the fifth and says Trump's vaccine cuts could cost lives, Global Roaming

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Find all the episodes of Global Roaming now via the ABC Listen App or wherever you get your podcasts. 

Helen Clark led New Zealand as Prime Minister for nearly nine years and she hasn't slowed down since.

Now the Chair of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, Clark spoke to Global Roaming at a moment when vaccines have become a genuine political battleground. 

Clark talks to Hamish Macdonald about Trump's executive order to cut the recommended childhood vaccine schedule, RFK Jr.'s rise at the top of US health policy, and why she thinks Anthony Fauci pleading the Fifth before a Senate committee isn't necessarily what it looks like.

She also raises a crisis that's had almost no attention: a fast-growing HIV outbreak in Fiji, driven by drug use and a lack of harm-reduction infrastructure.

Plus: the misogyny and threats faced by women in politics - including, she says, threats to Jacinda Ardern far beyond what she or Julia Gillard ever experienced - and the story of the Tampa refugees New Zealand took in, and the search to reunite them with their families.Guest: Helen Clark, Former Prime Minister of New Zealand & Board Chair, Gavi the Vaccine Alliance.

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Find all the episodes of Global Roaming now via the ABC Listen App or wherever you get your podcasts. 

In April 2024, an Israeli strike hit a World Central Kitchen convoy in Gaza, killing Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom and and six of her colleagues. 

Two years later, on World Humanitarian Day, the Israeli military said that its commanders' decisions did not raise reasonable suspicion of criminal misconduct and said it would not pursue a criminal case. 

In a joint statement, Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom called the announcement "shameful".

It comes as the United States sanctions International Criminal Court (ICC) judges and Secretary of State Marco Rubio vows to dismantle the court "brick by brick", in retaliation for its arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Laura Tingle and Latika Bourke ask whether international law is collapsing, and what middle powers like Australia can still do about it. 

Their guest, Human Rights Watch Executive Director Philippe Bolopion, warns that impunity is back as democracy slides to its lowest levels since the late 1970s. He makes his case for a coalition of middle power democracies, including Australia, to push back.  

Guest: Philippe Bolopion, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch

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Find all the episodes of Global Roaming now via the ABC Listen App or wherever you get your podcasts. 

As rebel forces grow in strength, and tensions rise their once-friendly neighbour Pakistan, how long can the Taliban rule?

The Australian's Asia-Pacific correspondent Amanda Hodge joins Geraldine Doogue and Hamish Macdonald to assess the Taliban's record in the 5 years since the last U.S. troop left Afghanistan. 

Plus, a so-called 'super El Niño' weather pattern is on its way. In Australia it's likely to bring dry conditions and a higher risk of fire, but across South-East Asia, the effects could be even more catastrophic. What are the consequences of weather that could serious slow or even reverse the explosive economic growth in the region?

And a running club in Bali has come under fire for prioritising digital nomads and ex-pats over Indonesian residents, reviving debate on Indonesian's colonial past, and how to balance Bali's status as a tourist destination with the dignity of the local citizens.

Plus, Amanda, Geraldine, and Hamish share what they've been reading and watching recently.

Guest: Amanda Hodge, Asia-Pacific corresondent with The Australian

Recommendations: 

Amanda – Joe Strummer and the Legend of The Clash by Kris Needs

Geraldine – Greg Bearup's article on the death of Kumantjayi Tjapaltjarri

Hamish - Tampa: The Turning Point available on ABC iview

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Has the world taken a wrong turn, or are we simply losing sight of how much progress has already been made?

In the second part of this conversation, former Justice of the High Court of Australia Michael Kirby reveals why, after years of working in the courts and in international aid, he is convinced that the world is moving in the right direction.

Pointing to progress made in the treatment of AIDS and other world pandemics, the growing acceptance and visibility of LGBTQIA+ people, and the spread of universal education, Michael Kirby says that there are reasons to be hopeful.

But, he adds, we cannot remain complacent against threats of fascism, climate change, and allowing irrationality to return to the forefront. 

In this expansive chat, Hamish Macdoanld and Waleed Aly ask Michael Kirby whether public trust in law and experts has been irreparably harmed, and whether political upheavals across the world are a sign of temporary unrest, or a symptom of something much deeper. 

Plus - what role does the media have in fostering a sense of pessimism or fatalism in the public?

Guest: Michael Kirby AC, former justice of the High Court of Australia

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How do you begin mending one of the most destructive political divides in modern history?

That is the challenge that former High Court of Australia justice Michael Kirby faced when he led a UN inquiry into human rights abuses in North Korea in 2013.

Despite being confronted with brutal repression and repeated failures of negotiation, Kirby remains hopeful that progress can be made, and that the United Nations has an irreplaceable role in facilitating communication between either side of the Korean DMZ.

In this first part of an expansive two-part episode, Hamish Macdonald and Waleed Aly join Justice Michael Kirby to discuss his history in international governance, his impressions of leaders like Donald Trump and George W. Bush, and how nuclear weapons have completely changed the future of the region.

Plus: how a very stern teacher and his cane gave Michael his first taste of injustice. 

Guest: Michael Kirby AC, former justice of the High Court of Australia

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When does political resistance become a moral obligation?

Chinese-Australian artist Badiucao and Chinese-American journalist Melissa Chan have both paid a personal price for criticising China's one-party system. Between them, they've faced expulsion, surveillance, harassment and intimidation.

Badiucao even found a man who had assumed his identity. 

Together, Chan and Badiucao have created the graphic novel You Must Take Part in Revolution, exploring a dystopian future in which a tech-authoritarian China locks horns with a fascistic United States, with Taiwan caught in the middle.

The book asks the question: how far should you go in resisting an authoritarian regime?

Hamish Macdonald and Geraldine Doogue speak with Chan and Badiucao about how the Hong Kong protests of 2019 brought their concerns about China to the forefront, the risks of AI supercharging the threat of surveillance, and why the individual right to liberty and freedom of expression is more important than simply siding with the United States or China. 

Guests: Melissa Chan, journalist & Badiucao, artist.

Melissa Chan and Badiucao are speaking at Sydney's Festival of Dangerous Ideas.

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What happens when a party's own voters start to rebel against the establishment?

The victories of New York mayor Zohran Mamdani and Democratic senate nominee for Michigan Abdul El-Sayed have brought a lot of attention to progressive candidates, but some in the centre are warning about 'insurgents' that may never reach mainstream electability. 

Asma Khalid is an American journalist who has spent years reporting from the White House - she says that this movement could represent a real shift for the future of the Democratic party when it comes to tax, healthcare, and America's relationship with Israel.

On today's episode, Asma joins Hamish Macdonald and Waleed Aly to talk about the strengths, weaknesses, and goals of the new trend of progressivism that is taking the spotlight, and its roots in Bernie Sander's transformative 2016 presidential bid. 

Plus: who are the Democratic Socialists of America, are they socialist, communist, or something new? And will these internal divisions lead to a stronger or weaker Democratic party?

Guest: Asma Khalid, journalist, co-host of The Global Story podcast, and former NPR White House correspondent

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China fired a nuclear-capable missile into the South Pacific. Then its neighbours couldn't agree to condemn it. The missile came down in waters close to Tuvalu's exclusive economic zone a month before foreign ministers met at the Pacific Islands Forum in Suva, Fiji. 

Australia's Penny Wong and New Zealand's Winston Peters pushed for a joint statement. Nauru and Kiribati refused to sign even the weakest version. 

Both have taken Chinese money and built closer ties with Beijing, and it showed. China is pressing south in other ways too: a security deal with the Cook Islands, coast guard vessels probing deeper into the region, and a clear interest in the minerals under the seabed.

Journalist Anna Fifield, who reported across Asia and the Middle East for the Washington Post and the Financial Times, asks whether Australia's much-praised Pacific reset is as solid as Canberra claims. 

She also takes on New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon surviving a second leadership challenge before the 7 November election, Vietnamese President To Lam's charm offensive in Australia and New Zealand, and Kim Jongn's apparent grooming of his teenage daughter to inherit North Korea. 

Hosts Geraldine Doogue and Hamish McDonald steer a tour of a neighbourhood that suddenly matters far more.

Guest: Anna Fifield, Independent journalist and foreign affairs commentator. Author of the Between Giants Substack.

Recommendations: 

Anna – All Her Lives by Ingrid Horrocks

Geraldine – World War II With Tom Hanks

Hamish - Unsettled by Kate Grenville

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We'd love to hear from you! Email us at [email protected]

Find all the episodes of Global Roaming now via the ABC Listen App or wherever you get your podcasts.