Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast

The 1st December is World AIDS Day and 2025 has proven to be a very challenging year globally for those working in HIV prevention and treatment. When George Bush introduced the US Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief in 2003 it was a gamer changer. Millions of people - particularly in Africa gained access to both HIV treatment and prevention drugs. Now access to this program is limited to HIV positive pregnant women.  

Guest: Dr Beatriz Grindsztejn, President International AIDS Society

The 2025 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, has aligned herself closely with the Trump administration on the issue of regime change in Venezuela. 

A new online map has come online and while it can not give you directions for driving your car from Rome to Paris, it can tell you how long it will take you to get from Roma to Lutetia in an ox cart (the answer: 755 hours). Itiner-e is a digital map of the estimated 300,000 kilometres of roads built by the Roman Empire.

This week's mystery caller is plainly coloured but sings with an easily recognised voice – the Pallid Cuckoo.

Anna Iltnere felt the pull of the sea when she moved from Riga - the capital of Lativia - to her new home looking out on the Baltic Sea. She started collecting books about the sea to try and find the words to describe that pull that many others had felt before. She accidentally became a sea librarian as people from around the world sent her books about the sea.

Guest: Anna Iltnere, sea librarian

Click here for the Sea Library Website

Big business, tech and even universities are using maths to enrich their own pockets. Maths Professor Noah Giansiracusa shows us how we can take back the algorithms and beat the top end at their own game.

Guest: Professor Noah Giansiracusa, Associate Professor of Mathematics at Bentley University, and author of Robin Hood Maths: Take Control of the Algorithms That Run Your Life.

The 1990s saw huge increases in the numbers of children with peanut and other food allergies. Almost 10 years ago the guidelines were changed and parents were encouraged to introduce peanuts and eggs in the first year as research had show this would actually reduce the incidence of food allergies. Have the new guidelines made a difference for Australia - the allergy capital of the world? 

Guest: Associate Professor Jennifer Koplin, University of Queensland

Claire Lehmann is the founder and proprietor of the online magazine Quillette which is celebrating its 10th anniversary. What is the secret to the survival of Quillette in the current media landscape.

Guest: Claire Lehmann, founder and proprieter of Quillette

When Róisín  Heneghan and her firm, Heneghan Peng Architects entered a competition to design a new museum just 2kms from the Pyramids of Giza, they knew they needed to create a design that only complimented the ancient landscape, but deeply engaged with it too. 

20 years later, their vision has finally been realised, with the opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo this month. Róisín Heneghan shares the complexities and triumphs in designing the largest single civilisation museum in the world.

Guest: Róisín Heneghan, founding partner of Heneghan Peng Architects. 

The former Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina has been sentenced to death in absentia for her role in the deaths of more than 1400 people during protests last year. Bangladesh has requested her extradition from India where she has been living in exile.

Guest: Zulkarnain Saer Khan is an investigative journalist who has reported extensively on corruption in Bangladesh.