Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast

In the 1960s independent magazine OZ became a cause célèbre when its editors were charged, in the UK and Australia, with obscenity.

Edition 4 of OZ magazine is a rare collectors item, valued at $700 by collectors online. One of the founders of OZ himself, Richard Walsh, had been searching for edition 4 far and wide.

This missing piece of Richard's collection was finally returned when Jill Bowen read about his search in The Australian … and it just so happened she still had her copy from over 60 years ago.

Guest: Jill Bowen, retired journalist

Abraham Kuol spent the first seven years of his life in Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya. His family came to Australia as refugees, and this year he is Victoria’s Young Australian of the Year. 

Abraham is an Associate Research Fellow in Criminology at Deakin University, where his research focuses on the post-settlement challenges faced by African Australians, particularly regarding interactions with the justice system. His work with the 2025 Westpac Social Change Fellowship has seen Abraham travel to countries in Europe and the UK to compare their justice responses to those in Victoria.

Abraham is also...

The Magna Carta is one of the world's most famous documents, and Australia has it's own copy from 1297. Libby Melzer recently completed a 10 year project to analyse and conserve this copy of the Great Charter, touching the 700 year old document with the scalpel herself.

Libby is the Head of Collection Care at State Library Victoria, and she is giving a talk about the Conservation of the Australian copy of the Magna Carta at the National Library of Australia at 6pm on Tuesday, February 10.

Guest: Libby Melzer, Head of Collection Care at State Library Victoria

Straight from Sydney Festival to Melbourne's Art House, Opera for the Dead is a striking contemporary Chinese cyber-opera that blurs ritual, music and technology. Co-creator Mindy Meng Wang reflects on how her personal experience of grief and funeral rites shaped the immersive visual and musical work she developed with sound designer Monica Lim.

Guest:Mindy Meng Wang, world-leading guzheng player, composer and co-creator of Opera for the Dead

Excerpts from Opera For The Dead rehearsal audio courtesy Mindy Meng Wang and Monica Lim

Mary Penfold was the driving force behind Penfolds wines, which grew from a small vineyard outside Adelaide in the 1850s to the wine-producing powerhouse that we know today.

The number of countries planning to relocate their capital cities now also includes Mongolia, where building works are underway on a new capital.

'Good character' as a mitigating factor of sentencing is poised to be abolished in NSW courts. The proposed new bill in NSW parliament relies on the recommendations in the report from the NSW Sentencing Council, but not all members of the council were in agreement. Barrister Felicity Graham explains why she dissented from the council's recommendations and what the unintended consequences of the change might mean for vulnerable defendants. 

Guest: Felicity Graham, Barrister at Black Chambers

17 months after the revolution that ended the 15 year rule of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her Awami League, Bangladesh goes to a general election on February 12.

Have you ever heard of water cremation? It sounds like a misnomer but it is an increasingly popular way of cremating the dead, which its proponents choose for it's gentle effect on their loved ones, and the environment. 

The death industry in Australia mostly consists of funeral homes as we’ve known them, but business owners like Luke Cripps have begun to offer new options for grieving Australians.

Guest: Luke Cripps is a Director of Alluvium Water Cremations in Tasmania: one of the few businesses in Australia offering the service of water cremation.

This week's mystery caller is a common, aerobatic predator of small insects – the Welcome Swallow.

John Birmingham is perhaps best known for his documentation of the "horror and madness" of Australian share-house living in his 1994 book He Died With A Felafel In His Hand.

His book Leviathan: An Unauthorised Biography of Sydney won the Australian National Prize for Non Fiction Award in 2002, and his (self-called) “airport novels” including The Axis of Time series are loved across the world.

1989 was an eventful year for John, which set him up for the Felafel book and the successful writing career he has today. He reflects on life in Bjelke-Petersen Queensland, the amount of couc...

A group of researchers have been (gently) scouring works of art and objects connected to the great Renaissance painter and inventor Leonardo da Vinci in a search for his DNA. 

Tyree Barnette arrived in Australia in 2012 with rose-coloured glasses for the laid-back, multicultural, egalitarian nation. But he soon found that being African-American on stolen land was more complex than he could imagine.

Guest: Tyree Barnette, author of Stolen Man on Stolen Land.

You know the jingle but do you know the story of the family behind Australia's iconic hardware retailer and sausage sizzle fundraiser?

Thailand will be heading into a snap general election on February 8. Will the reformist party leading the polls make it first across the finish line? And what are the issues resonating with Thailand's voters?

Guest: Aim Sinpeng, Senior Lecturer in Comparative Politics and International Relations at the University of Sydney

Amid escalating tension between the US and Iran, how does Iraq navigate the election of a new Prime Minister that will satisfy both sides?

Guest: Dr Marsin Alshamary, assistant professor of political science at Boston College

The trial is likely to see CEOs including Meta's Mark Zuckerberg take the witness stand to testify about what they knew of the potential dangers of their platforms. 

Summer is the season for flies, and while some species may be an annoyance, flies also perform an import role in natural ecosystems. 

This week's mystery caller is common, widespread and definitely not a Magpie! – it's the Magpie-Lark.

L-FRESH The Lion is one of the luminaries of the vibrant cultural scene of Sydney’s western suburbs. Hip-hop artist, music producer, and creative director of the Conscious program at Campbelltown Arts Centre, which mentors and platforms the next generation of Western Sydney's hip-hop and RnB artists.

Born and raised in South West Sydney into a Sikh family who migrated from Punjab, India, L-FRESH has been at the forefront of change in the Australian hip hop scene for almost two decades.

A powerful experience in 2006 changed his life, and started him on the path that ha...

When we think about the universe, how to we conceptualise numbers so large they are beyond our imagination? Mathematician Ian Le shares the mysteries of a vigintillion, a googolplex, and nameless numbers gigantic proportions. 

Guest: Ian Le, Senior Lecturer at ANU’s Mathematical Sciences Institute

One of the people in the running — literally and figuratively — for this year's Young Australian of the Year award is Nedd Brockmann.

In 2022, Nedd was a 23-year-old sparkie from Forbes who decided to run across the continent to raise money for people experiencing homelessness.

He started in Perth and was greeted by thousands at Bondi Beach 46 days later, having raised over $2 million for homelessness charity We Are Mobilise.

Since then Nedd has pushed himself further, by completing an excruciating 1,609km run in 10 consecutive days, and encourages others to push themselves, and raise money to h...

Each 25th of January marks the night of the Burns Supper, celebrated in Scotland and across the globe to honour the birthday, life and legacy of Scotland's National Bard, Robert Burns. 

Professor of Robert Burns Studies at the University of Glasgow Pauline Mackay joins us to discuss all things Burns, and the evolving international celebration of the Burns Supper. 

Are you holding a Burns Supper this year? Participate in the Burns Supper at 225 years, Scottish Tradition, Global Reinvention project survey here! 

Guest: Pauline Mackay, Professor of Robert Burns Studies and Cultural Heritage at the...

In 2022, investigative journalist Charlotte Grieve was sued for defamation by renowned surgeon Dr Munjed al Muderis, a celebrity doctor from Iraq who came to Australia as a refugee and went on to become a specialist in a novel area of orthopedic surgery called osseointegration.

As Australians continue to reel from the grief of the Bondi Massacre an important questions emerge:

When do begin to memorialise the site?

Who gets a say in the memorial process?

How do we, as Australians, create a memorial to help us heal?

Dr Rosemary Hollow shares her thoughts, based on the memorial processes of Port Arthur and the Bali Bombings

Guest: Dr Rosemary Hollow, Former Adjunct Associate Professor at the Centre for Creative and Cultural Practice, University of Canberra

Yes, polar and grizzly bears can breed, and their offspring are called pizzly or grolar bears. 

But what does science have to say about these odd hybrids? Are they the future of adaptation in a changing climate or could they accelerate the demise of the polar bear?

Guest: Andrew Derocher, Professor of Biological Sciences at University of Alberta in Edmonton Canada, and author of ‘Polar Bears: A complete guide to their biology and behaviour’. 

Meet North Korean Seongmin Lee who defected to the West and he now smuggles USB sticks containing Korean soap operas into North Korea. Intrepid investigative journalist Sean Williams tells the story of his trip to meet the self-proclaimed ‘ King of Bougainville’. On The Year That Made Me we revisit our interview with Matilda’s Media Manager, Ann Odong, as she shares her story and her love of football.

Author and broadcaster Tim Ross reveals some of the Australian designs you have never heard of. Sally Gould take us behind the scenes of life as a new paramedic - and her tips for staying sane and Mary Bosworth takes us behind the scenes of a UK deportation facility. All revealed on Sunday Extra's summer special.

Historian Ann Curthoys takes us on Paul Robeson's tour of Australia back in 1960. What happened to the platypus called Winston Churchill that was sent by boat to the UK in the middle of the 2nd World War. And don't miss a moving Year That Made Me with photographer Julian Kingma. All on Sunday Extra this week.

Bagpipes have a long history that doesn't all take place in Scotland. How much truth is there in the CIA's use of George Orwell's book Animal Farm. And why has the Algerian Nutella-like spread El Morjene been banned in Europe? Find out on Sunday Extra.

2005 was a big year for Marcus Zusak and Gill Hicks. For Markus Zusak his best seller The Book Thief was published. For Gill Hicks, 2005 was the year she survived the terrorist bombing of the London Underground. Both events changed their lives. We also investigate the rise of the Banh Mi and Hi Viz in Australia.

Project Monarch is a crowd-sourcing initiative that uses Bluetooth tracking technology to help scientists and butterfly enthusiasts monitor individual monarch butterflies in real time. The butterflies are tracked through an app as they migrate from North America to central Mexico.

Guest: Jennifer Thieme, Senior Science Manager at Monarch Joint Venture

Toowoomba's pink-haired, motorbike-riding priest has overcome huge challenges on the road to becoming Reverend Harley.

Andrew "The Annihilator" Ngai  is an actuary by day, but he has just returned from Las Vegas where he was competing in the Microsoft Excel World Championships. He has already won the title three times, but will he win again? 

Guest: Andrew Ngai, Actuary and Excel World Champion

When an Airbus A320 made a dramatic altitude drop recently, Airbus grounded more than 6,000 planes to fix a software error that made aircraft computers vulnerable to cosmic radiation. So how exactly does radiation from deep space affect technology on earth, and should we be concerned?

Guest: Michael Wheatland, cosmic astrophysicist and Professor of Physics at University of Sydney

This week's tweeter is the Sahul Sunbird - and we also accepted its former name of Olive-backed Sunbird.

It's the only Sunbird found in Australia - pale yellow below and dusky brown above. And like its relatives, its equipped with a long downcurved bill, which is great for plucking insects or collecting nectar!

And the winner is: 

Thousands of Ukrainian refugees came to Australia in 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine. Many of them are now facing their fourth Christmas in Australia and are conflicted about where they now call home. Svitlana and her son Max have made a new life in Adelaide where Max is attending university when he is not training to represent Australia in Canoe Sprint.

Guests: Svitlana and Maksym Gandziuk

Click here to find out more about the organisation that provides support to Ukrainian refugees in South Australia

100 word including guest & book

Evan Ratcliff's podcast Shell Game has returned for a second season that rivals the first for it's unsettling but comic exploration of AI. This time Evan creates the a one-human start-up run largely by AI agents.

Guest: Evan Ratliff, tech journalist and creator of the podcast Shell Game, and the one-human startup HurumoAI.

Season 1 of Shell Game is available on the ABC Listen App.

On August 14th 2003, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1500, establishing the United Nations Assistance Mission to Iraq, at the request of the Iraqi government. After 22 years, that mission is set to end on the 31st of December, and will leave behind a very different nation.