Saturday Extra - Separate stories podcast

The population of feral cats, foxes, deer, pig, buffalo and camels - among other species - are exploding across the continent. Yet our response has been ad hoc, small target, and lacking in strategy.Now, the Invasive Species Council is pitching a galvanising vision that could shift the dial on eradicating feral animals in Australia.

Just over four years ago the Taliban seized control of Kabul in a matter of days and established a de facto government, after decades of Western military intervention to stop exactly that. Despite promises of moderation and inclusion, the Taliban has established a repressive, exclusionary regime and edicts have erased women from public life.

The former US Ambassador to China, Nicholas Burns is one of America’s most seasoned diplomats. He has served six presidents and nine secretaries of state.  He joins Nick Bryant to discuss Beijing’s massive display military power to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II and China's moves to reframe its role in the conflict as part of its ambition to rearrange the global balance of power.He also discusses President Donald Trump's latest executive order to rebrand the Department of Defense as the Department of War.

For decades China’s wartime contribution against the Japanese was not given proper credit in the West.  But now, Rana Mitter says China is picking and choosing the parts of history that best suit its current geopolitical goals - to frame to China, rather than the U.S, as the real inheritor of the 1945 global order.

The Last Thing: our regular monthly segment where guests share the last great movie they watched, book they read, or place they visited. Katrina Rathie is a trailblazing former lawyer who spent much of her career trying to change the Australian corporate world by pushing for women to get better jobs and higher pay, by urging firms to reflect the ethnic diversity of the country, by making their companies look more like modern Australia.  Katrina shares the last thing that made her cry, the last great party she went to and the last book she enjoyed.

The university sector is facing a widespread budgetary crisis, hundreds of job losses, and criticism of high executive salaries.  There's also been a reduction in the number of new overseas students coming to the country  - reducing revenue for the sector.  When you add in  the use of AI and increasing student needs - it's a very challenging time.  So how can universities rebuild?

The Australian World Orchestra was founded in 2010 with the aim of bringing home Aussie players home to play as an ensemble. This year they've come together for a Mahlerfest - Gustav Mahler’s 4th and 5th symphonies will be played for one night in Melbourne, at the Hamer Hall, and one night in Sydney, at the Opera House.

Under the authoritarian rule of President Rodriguez Duterte in The Philippines, Maria Ressa was targeted online, and had 11 arrest warrants out for her in just over a year.Since then, Duterte has been arrested on an International Criminal Court warrant and Maria Ressa has won a Nobel Peace Prize. As democracies increasingly elect strongman leaders and tech companies circulate misinformation with impunity, Ressa warns against sleepwalking into authoritarianism.

The threats posed by sovereign citizen views materialised again this week with the killing of two police officers in Victoria's north-east by the alleged gunman Dezi Freeman, who remains at large.In the same week, an ASIO investigation found that Iran was ultimately responsible for an attack on a Melbourne synagogue, and an arson attack on the Lewis Continental Kitchen in Sydney, and potentially many other violent acts of anti-Semitism in Australia.How do we respond to both internal and external threats to national security and social cohesion?

If video killed the radio star, will artificial intelligence slay the voice-over artist? It’s a serious question  - and the Australian Association of Voice Actors is now calling on the government to mandate the labelling of all AI-generated content.Cloning voices is no longer science fiction - it's here and threatening to take the jobs of voice over actors, artists and narrators. There's a global push by voice over artists to have better job protections in place.