Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast

Can you guess this week's croaker?

Pankaj Mishra looks at the war in Gaza through the lens of colonialism and identity and asks whether the war is based in competing narratives of suffering.

Guest: Pankaj Mishra, essayist and author of The World After Gaza: A history published by Penguin Random House

Pankaj Mishra will be in Australia speaking at The Adelaide Festival, The Wheeler Centre and UNSW. 

The Bundanon Art Museum has been partially closed in preparation for a new exhibition. But from Saturday 1 March 2025 it will be fully open again with a new show.

The 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon is an opportunity for many in the Vietnamese-Australian diaspora to celebrate their resilience, and the end of the Vietnam war.

The 2025 John McCain dissertation award was presented to Dr Tim Heinkelmann-Wild for his thesis titled 'After Exit: Alternative Leadership and Institutional Resilience after Hegemonic Withdrawal'.

This week people took to the streets in the Cook Islands capital to protest against a deal their Prime Minister signed with China. New Zealand was not happy either. But should the Cook Islands be able to pursue greater independence from New Zealand?

Guests: Professor Jon Fraenkel, University of Victoria, Wellington and Vaine Wichman, Development Economist and former Cook Island MP

Nathalie Cabrol has had a stellar career as an astrobiologist combining her passion for nature with her obsession with space. She has explored the most extreme environments on earth including the high lakes of the Andes where she has found life in the most inhospitable places. This gives her hope of finding evidence of life on some of our neighbouring planets and moons, including Mars and Titan,

Guest:

Nathalie Cabrol, Director of the Carl Sagan Centre at the SETI Institute

This week's mystery caller forms large, noisy flocks at this time of year  – the Little Corella

Opera has a reputation as entertainment for the upper classes, but a new opera company is determined to demystify opera and make it accessible to all. The T-Shirt Opera Company is performing their show "Opera Unmasked: Arias and Anecdotes" at the upcoming Flinders Fringe Festival.

Guests:

Katie Fisher (Producer), Chloe James (Mezzo Soprano), Lisette Bolton (Soprano), James Billson (Baritone) and Julian Wade (accompanist)

Click here for the Flinders Fringe Festival program.

As the 3rd anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine approaches, could President Trump's relationship with Putin improve the prospects of peace? But at what cost for Ukrainians. Zakhida Adylova spoke to Sunday Extra at the start of the war and joins us again.

Guest: Zakhida Adylova, freelance journalist