Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast

Gill Hicks was the last survivor to be pulled from the wreckage of a bomb blast, when 4 bombs went off in a co-ordinated attack across London on July 7, 2005. Despite the permanent injuries she suffered, including the loss of both her legs, Gill chose not to let the bombings consume her with anger or a desire for retaliation. Instead she has spent the last 20 years dedicating her life to creating peace, diffusing extremism, advocating for survivors and celebrating life through music and the arts. 

Guest: Dr Gill Hicks, author, musician, artist and performer.

Axolotls are the gold medallists when it comes to limb regeneration. Researchers from Northeastern University have discovered not only how an axolotl starts to regenerate a limb, but also how it knows just how much of the limb needs to be regenerated - whether it is just a finger or a whole arm. The research has implications for humans and our healing processes.

Professor and Chair at the Department of Biology at Northeastern University

Before Bluey, before B1 and B2, even before Play School, there was Mr Squiggle. 

The puppet man from the moon with a pencil for a nose was a fixture of kids television on the ABC for 40 years from 1959 and 1999 . 

And now Mr Squiggle is back - not on television, but in a new free exhibition at the National Museum of Australia.

GUEST:

Rebecca Hetherington Daughter of Norman Hetherington and former presenter of Mr Squiggle and Friends.

Mr Squiggle and Friends: The Creative World of Norman Hetherington.   

Australian university sector is in crisis, with headlines repeatedly warning of job cuts, declining enrolments and concerns over the cuts to face-to-face teaching. Professor Graeme Turner shares insights from his new book, Broken: Universities, Politics and the Public Good, tracing how and why our universities have reached this crisis and Australia needs to do to pull out the sector out of this tail spin. 

Guest: Professor Graeme Turner, Emeritus Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Queensland and author of Broken: Universities, Politics and the Public Good

Reena Ghelani has been working in humanitarian aid for over 25 years crossing the globe supporting communities in crisis. Born in Uganda, but raised in Melbourne, she has recently been appointed to lead international aid agency Plan International at a time of increasing need and decreasing support from governments around the globe, in particular America.

Guest: Reena Ghelani, CEO of Plan International 

On the 10th July, the former Prime Minister of Malaysia Mohamad Mahathir turns 100. He remains in excellent health and continues to work long days taking meetings and writing his blog. He navigated the birth of the new post-colonial nation of Malaysia for the better and the worse during his time as  Prime Minister from 1981 - 2003. He then surprised the world by being re-elected Prime Minister in 2018, aged 92.  

Guest: James Chin, Professor of Asian Studies at the University of Tasmania

More than ONE million lives have been lost on both sides of the war in Ukraine,  since Russia’s invasion in February 2022.

Throughout the conflict, Russia and Ukraine have used anti-personnel mines, a weapon of war that comes with a particularly awful legacy.

Now Ukraine has announced it is to withdraw from the Ottawa Treaty, a 1999 agreement ratified by the UN banning the use of landmines.

GUEST:

Mary Wareham Deputy Director of the Crisis, Conflict and Arms Division at Human Rights Watch

Two years ago, the head of Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin ordered 25,000 of his troops to march towards Moscow. 24 hours later they were ordered to stand down. Two months later Prighozhin, his deputy and 10 other died when his private plane exploded over Russia. This month Wagner announced they were leaving Mali, so what has happened to the organisation since the death of Prigozhin?

Guest John Lechner, author of Death is our Business: Russian Mercenaries and the New Era of Private Warfare (Bloomsbury)

You can pre-order the book online here.

When a friend asked pastry chef Christopher Thé to make them a wedding cake and to "go wild" he didn't realise that in a few years his strawberry watermelon cake would become the most instagrammed cake in the world. Christopher was the founder of Black Star Pastry - a cafe in inner city Sydney - and also the creative genius behind the strawberry watermelon cake that would attract tourists from around the globe to his cafe's front door. 

Guest: Christopher Thé, founder of Black Star Pastry, owner of Hearthe and author of Modern Australian Baking (Hardie Grant)

Last European summer, a hazelnut spread from Algeria took France by storm. The sweet white spread called El Mordjene became the darling of tik-tok influencers and was soon in short supply across the country with prices skyrocketing. Now the product has been banned from sale across the EU causing a diplomatic rift between Algeria and it former colonial power, France.

Guest: Lauren Collins, Paris correspondent for the New Yorker

How a hazelnut spread became a sticking point in Franco-Algerian relations.