Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast

Omar El Akaad was at college in 2001 when the opportunity to become a writer opened up before him. Over the following decades this path would lead him through the violence of war in Afghanistan, the hidden injustices of Guantanomo Bay and the electric energy of the Arab Spring in Egypt. It would also allow him, in 2023 to voice his anger, disgust and outrage at the images he saw coming out of Gaza, which he has stilled in his latest book, part memoir, part searing manifesto, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This. 

Guest: Omar El Akkad, journalist and author of One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This

It is the 10th year of the ReelOzInd! short film festival which is open to filmmakers from both Australia and Indonesia. The finalists are shown in both Indonesia and Australia both at the launch and as a pop up festival. This year's theme for the festival was imajinasi. The winning film this year centres on a father facing life as an empty nester.

Guests: Jemma Purdey, Festival Director and Trivita Tiffany Winataputri, the winner of this year's competition for her fllm You, Me and that Chair 

Click here to find more about the ReelOzInd! festival and here to view the finalists.

This is the poem You, Me And That Chair by Johannes Winata, read by Trivita Tiffany Winataputri. The poem was the inspiration for the short film of the same name which recently won the ReelOZInd! short film festival. For more information about the festival click here.

YOU, ME, AND THAT CHAIR(translated from Bahasa Indonesia)Maybe these are the last moments we can spend together Going about our daily lives without worrying that tomorrow we might no longer see each otheror spend the night talking about the football match on TV,or watch you solve math formulas and finish your schoolwork for the next day.The dining chair you always sit on will lose the warmth of your body;it will miss its duty of carrying your weight,which has grown ever since your first tooth came in and then fell out, one by one.It has witnessed how you learned to eat on your own,then faithfully listened to your stories and adventures that day and even your tales of first love,as usual, expressed through poems colored by romance.Perhaps it will be hard for us to see each other every day in the same house,for tomorrow, when you take your steps away from this place,there will be much you must do to pave your future.There are still mountains to climb,seas to cross,and wild forests whose secrets you must uncover.For that I let go of our time together,so that you may live through it all with passion, a gift that life can offer.Meanwhile, I must continue finishing what remains of my life,like the rambutan tree that must keep bearing fruituntil the time comes for it to fall to the ground,facing the change of seasons,or wither away, no longer able to draw water from the soil that once gave it life.Perhaps one day we will long to meet again.But your time and mine are like the sea water that reaches for the sand touching only for a moment before reeling back and vanishing into foams of memoriesI will keep waiting for that moment,even if it comes only at the edge of my final breath.

Johannes Winata

Jakarta, 26 June 2018

Anti-immigration protests have become a regular fixture of the Australian news cycle. In the UK, CNN reported that anti-immigration rallies in London in September were attended by around 110 thousand people. That is the context for the upcoming 2025 Colin Clark Lecture at the University of Queensland on 29 October

Raila Odinga 'a towering figure in Kenyan politics' died on 15 October 2025, aged 80. A former Prime Minister, and son of Kenya’s first Vice-President, Odinga also famously ran in every Presidential election since 1997 bar one, never actually obtaining that office. 

Thirteen years after U Thant left his position as a school teacher in a small village in Burma, he found himself appointed as Secretary General of the United Nations. 

He was highly involved in many peace negotiations in his 10 years at the helm of the UN, including the Cuban missile crisis, the Congo, the Middle East and many more. Why is his legacy as a peacemaker largely forgotten?

Guest: Thant Myint U, historian, academic and author of The Peacemaker:  U Thant and the Forgotten Quest for a Just World 

Getting fired isn't normally something to celebrate, but Laura Brown, along with co-author Kristine O'Neill have created a part-memoir, part-manifesto for the modern woman - All the Cool Girls Get Fired. And it considers why the corporate ladder was never built for women, and how getting knocked off can be a blessing in disguise. 

Guest: Laura Brown, co-author of All The Cool Girls Get Fired

50 years after the murder of the Balibo 5 and 18 years after a coronial inquest confirmed the Australian journalists were deliberately shot by Indonesian forces, no action has been taken for accountability of the war crime. But one campaigner, Professor Clinton Fernandes, has been rallying to have the Balibo files declassified. 

Guest: Clinton Fernandes, Professor of International and Political Studies at UNSW

Theresa Payton made history as the first female Chief Information Officer in the White House, where she steered digital transformation strategy and helped secure critical government systems. With an increase in cybercrime in Australia, what's her advice to Australians on how to stay safe online and how to harness the enormous capabilities of generative AI without losing the human touch?

Guest: Theresa Payton - CEO of Fortalice Solutions and former White House Chief Information Officer

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller is the architect of a suite of Donald Trump's hardline border policies, from the so-called “Muslim ban” to the ICE raids on undocumented immigrants. He has been described as a “race-baiting” nativist who is the “root of all evil” in the Trump administration. Who is Stephen Miller and why does he hold so much sway over the president?

Guest: David Klion, columnist for The Nation magazine and contributing editor at Jewish Currents.