Not all nations last, and as author Gideon Defoe points out sometimes it's for the best. In his new book An Atlas of Extinct Countries, Defoe explores the fascinating and sometimes outlandish stories behind territories that didn't make the cut.

Response has been mixed to this week's announcement that RNZ and TVNZ will come under a new media entity. With much detail still to be revealed, many questions are as yet unanswered. Former New Zealand First MP Tracey Martin led the Business Case Governance Group that provided Faafoi advice ahead of the decision to create the new entity.

Kim Hill reads listener feedback for 5 March 2022.

We have been told wrong: inequality is not the price of civilisation, says archaeologist David Wengrow. Many long held assumptions about how humans developed as a species are blown apart by Wengrow and the late anthropologist David Graeber in their international bestseller The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity.

An upcoming exhibition entitled To Fashion: Dressing Aotearoa documents the style of 12 distinctive individuals including rising poet Tayi Tibble, mental health advocate Sir John Kirwan, K'road chronicler Six, and tapa cloth artist and expert Sulieti Fieme'a Burrows.

Michael Schur is an American television writer and producer whose list of impressive credits include creating the award-winning fantasy comedy show The Good Place. Set in the afterlife, the show deals with the two major themes of morality and redemption, leaning into Schur's own interest in ethics which was prompted by everyday personal experiences.

Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer looks poised to enter the medicinal cannabis arena with a US$6.7 billion agreement to purchase Arena Pharmaceuticals, a biotech company with a pipeline dedicated to cannabinoid-type therapeutics. In New Zealand, we seem to be lagging in exploring the possibilities of the medicinal cannabis market.

Russia's state regulator Roskomnadzor says it has decided to block access to Facebook in Russia. Meanwhile on Friday night (NZ time) the Russian parliament passed legislation imposing a jail term of up to 15 years for spreading intentionally "fake" news about the military.

The world narrowly averted a nuclear catastrophe on Friday when a fire broke out during a Russian seizure of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, the US ambassador to the United Nations has said.

Listener feedback from today's show.