With the end of the New START treaty the doomsday clock has moved a little closer to midnight and the Kremlin is warning that the world is in a more dangerous position than ever before. Rose Gotemoeller negotiated the treaty in the Obama administration 16 years ago before becoming NATO deputy secretary general. She says we could be on the cusp of a new arms race, but we shouldn't panic yet. 

Medical specialists are among the highest paid professionals in Australia and their rates are rising faster than your wages. A new report shows the growing pressure this is putting on Australians, with many forgoing the healthcare they need. Former chief medical officer Professor Brendan Murphy likens it to cartel behaviour. 

If you've had to see a medical specialist lately, you’ll know that it really hurts in your hip pocket and for people with chronic conditions and sick kids, the pressure is enormous. 

Medical specialists are among the highest-paid professionals in Australia, and their rates continue to rise, outpacing inflation and Medicare. 

A report released today by Private Healthcare Australia highlights just how much stress these fees are putting consumers under. 

Guests:

Kimberley Grima, Consumer advocate with Chronic Pain Australia

Dr Brendan Murphy, Former Chief Medical Officer and Secretary of the Commonwealth Department of Health

For the past 16 years the New START treaty limited Russia and the US to the deployment of 1500 nuclear warheads. Today it expired. Are we on the cusp of a new nuclear arms race?

Israel’s President Issac Herzog flies to Australia on Sunday to honour and remember the victims of the Bondi terrorist attack, but the visit is dividing Jewish Australians. Will he bring comfort and connection with the Jewish heartland, or create new ruptures in our community. Lillian Kline, co-founder of Project A & Sarah Schwartz, executive officer of The Jewish Council of Australia debate this presidential visit. 

Canada, the United Kingdom and Spain have all lost their measles free status in recent months and the United States could soon join them. Vaccine resistance is growing around the world but in America, the Trump administration has doubled down, gutting the  Centres for Disease Control and Prevention of medical expertise, with liberty, individual choice and dubious science now setting the agenda. Dr Debra Howry resigned from her role as the Chief Medical Officer at the US the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in protest last year and says she's deeply concerned that childhood diseases once considered consigned to history could make a deadly comeback. 

In November last year Canada lost its measles elimination status after a sustained period of community transmission. The UK lost its just last week and the same declaration is expected for the United States later this month as the country battles a surge in infections, with cases increasing almost ten fold in a year. The vast majority of these cases were in unvaccinated children. 

Israel’s president Isaac Herzog arrives in Australia on Sunday at the invitation of our Prime Minister. Many Australian Jews are welcoming the visit as a statement solidarity with a community in mourning after the Bondi massacre, others are vehemently opposed, saying his presence will only sow division. 

Pulitzer prize-winning composer John Luther Adams’s work is deeply enmeshed in the landscapes he inhabits ... the desert plains in Mexico and the mountains of Alaska, where he lived for 40 years.

Indigenous senator Lidia Thorpe has lashed out over the nation’s response to a potentially devastating bomb attack on First Nations people at an Invasion Day rally in Perth. Western Australian Indigenous leaders say their calls for recognition of the incident as an act of terrorism motivated by racism have been met with silence and indifference. 

Gazans have quietly welcomed the opening of the Rafah crossing into Egypt after more than a year, but with just a trickle of people allowed to leave the devastated territories each day and no aid allowed to cross into the strip there's frustration and growing despair with Israel's commitment to the terms of the ceasefire.

AI shopping is fast becoming a reality as companies look for more and more ways to bring the technology into our daily lives. Mastercard recently announced that it had made what it calls Australia's first transaction by an AI bot and major players like Google, Open AI, Amazon and Perplexity are all looking at building what’s called ‘agentic commerce’ into their operations. 

The people of Gaza have been granted access to the outside world with with the Rafah crossing into Egypt partially reopening. But with fewer than 150 people allowed to leave the devastated territory every day the Palestinians are still very much captive to the whims of Israel.

AI shopping is fast becoming a reality as companies look for more and more ways to bring the technology into our daily lives.