Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast

This week seven members of the Iranian women’s soccer delegation were given humanitarian visas to stay in Australia rather than returning to Iran after competing in the Women’s Asian Cup. The events of this week echo previous instances of Australia giving humanitarian visas to athletes, such as the decision in 2021 to give visas to members of the Afghan women's cricket team. 

Julie Janson is a Burruberongal woman, novelist, playwright and poet. In her new book, Letters from India, she writes about the profoundly moving experience of visiting India as an Indigenous woman — the tears, the joy and the unexpected connections she makes along the way.

Guest: Julie Janson, novelist, playwright, poet and author of Letters from India

Deborah Cheetham Fraillon AO is a soprano and composer whose extensive CV includes Artistic Director of Short Black Opera and Dhungala Children's Choir, First Nations Creative Chair at Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and Chair of Vocal Studies at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Deborah describes herself as a “21st century urban woman who is Yorta Yorta by birth, stolen generation by government policy, soprano by diligence, composer by necessity and lesbian by practice.” 

Her career began with the autobiographical one-woman stage play White Baptist ABBA Fan, and followed with Australia's first Indigenous opera, Pecan Summer, which Deborah wrote after she reconnected with the family she had been stolen from, and with Yorta Yorta Country. 

Deborah's towering 2018 composition Eumeralla, a war requiem for peace commemorates the Eumeralla Wars of the late 19th century fought between Gunditjmara people and colonists in South Western Victoria. Eumeralla, a war requiem for peace was translated from the Latin Christian requiem mass into Gunditjmara dialects by senior language custodian Vicki Couzens and linguist Travers Eira, and is sung entirely in Gunditjmara by Indigenous and non-Indigenous choirs and soloists.

There are many moments that have changed Deborah's life, including when she first saw Joan Sutherland perform - but 2023 stands out as both the year she married her wife Nicolette Fraillon, and the year that Australia voted against an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.

Deborah is speaking at All About Women at the Sydney Opera House, Sunday March 8.

Guest: Deborah Cheetham Fraillon AO

In the live broadcast of this episode, Eumeralla movement IV was played: Kooyeen-wanoong (Liber scriptus), performed by Jess Hitchcock and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Benjamin Northey. Released on ABC Classic.

Gatz is a six-hour theatrical reimagining of The Great Gatsby (eight and a half hours with intervals), which The New York Times called “the most remarkable achievement in theatre … this decade”.

Gatz will be performed at the Adelaide Festival from 13 to 15 March.

Guest: John Collins, director of Gatz and founder of the Elevator Repair Service Theater.

As doctors are weighed down by increased demands, reduced support and the fast pace of change in medical research, could AI help save the health system for both patients and physicians?

Guest: Dr Charlotte Blease, associate professor in the Department of Women's and Children's Health at Uppsala University, Sweden; researcher at Harvard Medical School; and author of Dr. Bot: Why Doctors Can Fail Us — and How AI Could Save Us.

Roughly 98% of all global internet traffic travels not via phone towers or even satellites, but underwater, along a vast network of fiber optic cables that run some 1.5 million kilometres along the ocean floor. 

Rapper-turned-politician Balen Shah has been elected Nepal's new Prime Minister. The 35 year-old was the mayor of Kathmandu before he ran against former leader KP Sharma Oli.

Nepal went to the polls on Thursday 5 March, just six months after the Gen Z protests that saw the deaths of dozens of students and ultimately brought down the government of the day.

Guest: Roman Gautam, journalist and editor of Himal Southasian magazine.

Reza Pahlavi, the son of the last Shah of Iran, is pitching himself as a democratic future leader of Iran, claiming to have broad support in Iran. Who were the Pahlavi Shahs and what was life like under their rule?

Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz highlights how vulnerable global trade routes can be to disruption — and how easily strategic choke points can be weaponised.

Guest: Sarah Schiffling, Deputy Director of the HUMLOG Institute and Assistant Professor of Supply Chain Management and Social Responsibility at the Hanken School of Economics.

Donald Trump has announced the death of Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei from a missile strike coordinated by the United States and Israel. Julian speaks with UN and New York Correspondent at the BBC Persian Service, Bahman Kalbasi about what this means for the Iranian regime. 

Guest: Bahman Kalbasi, UN and New York Correspondent for the BBC Persian Service.