Saturday Extra - Separate stories podcast

This week, master of Australian comedy Ted Emery passed away. He was the maestro behind some of Australia's classic TV comedies: Kath and Kim, Fast Forward, Full Frontal, The Micallef Program and Tonight Live with Steve Vizard.Magda Szubanski shares her memories of working with him.

A tiny possum with an extremely long finger and a new kind of gliding marsupial have been identified in West Papua. The two species were only previously known in Western science from the fossil record.

Anthropic and the Trump administration had a major falling out last week when the leading AI company requested restrictions on how the military uses its technology.The stoush goes to the heart of the government's relationship with this rapidly evolving, increasingly powerful technology. 

Iran has spent decades and billions of dollars preparing foreign proxies as part of an alliance system stretching from Gaza, Lebanon and Syria to Yemen and Iraq.How has Israel's degradation of Iran's proxy network emboldened the US and Israel to push into the heart of the Iranian regime?

As the bombs keep falling on Iran, a big part of the Iranian strategy seems to be based on dragging out the conflict.The regime knows there's no appetite in the US for protracted conflicts after the so-called forever wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. So does the Iranian regime have the capacity to hang on?

The NSW State Librarian Dr Caroline Butler-Bowdon joins Saturday Extra for The Last Thing. She talks about her last great read, last great sporting match and last great swim.

Geoff Mulgan, who worked with former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, discusses how the Brits have borrowed some of our policy ideas. In a wide-ranging chat with Nick Bryant, he also looks at social cohesion, and other big issues facing both the UK and Australia.

Marianne Williamson stood for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020 and 2024. She rose to national prominence back in the 1980s as a spiritual leader and author of the New York Times bestseller Return to Love.She unpacks the state of US politics with Nick Bryant.

The outside world gets few hints at what is actually happening inside North Korea.But this week, the Workers' Party of Korea is holding its congress. It's the country's most significant political meeting and our greatest insight into the mysterious machinations of the hermit kingdom.The week-long event provides a fresh look at Kim's plans for his teenage daughter to succeed him as leader, the country's nuclear plans, and its close relationship with Russia. 

Next week marks the 80th anniversary of one of the most era-defining speeches of the post-war years, which Sir Winston Churchill delivered in Fulton, Missouri.Today, era-defining speechifying seems to be very much back in vogue. So what exactly makes a great speech?