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The Morning Edition

The Morning Edition

By: The Age and Sydney Morning Herald
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The Morning Edition (formerly Please Explain) brings you the story behind the story with the best journalists in Australia. Join host Samantha Selinger-Morris from the newsrooms of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, weekdays from 5am.

2026 The Age and Sydney Morning Herald
Economics Political Science Politics & Government Social Sciences
Episodes
  • What Ukraine’s four-year resistance against Russia teaches us about survival
    Feb 25 2026

    The Pentagon once said that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could succeed in three days. So, as the war rages on, more than four years later, what else have world leaders got wrong?

    For one thing, what a nation’s most important source of power is.

    Today international and political editor Peter Hartcher on the underestimated power that Ukraine holds, and what it would take for us to acquire it.

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    25 mins
  • Inside Dr Jamal Rifi's mission to bring 'ISIS brides' and children home
    Feb 25 2026

    Jamal Rifi is the Sydney doctor at the centre of a controversial mission to repatriate the so-called ISIS brides – 34 Australian women and children who are living in a camp in Syria.

    He also wants to bring back a young man who was taken to Syria as a boy who is now in an adult men’s prison.

    The women travelled to Syria and were married to jihadists, who are now dead or in jail. When Islamic State's so-called caliphate fell, they were put in detention camps. For seven years they have lived in no man’s land, trying to return home to Australia.

    Dr Rifi, a medical doctor and friend of Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke, speaks to senior writer Michael Bachelard for this special episode of The Morning Edition.

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    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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    33 mins
  • Kidnapped, body found: The case of Sydney grandfather Chris Baghsarian
    Feb 24 2026

    A scream in the night, glass smashing, and dogs barking - these were the first signs that something terrible had happened in a suburban Sydney street.

    Since then, police have revealed this was a highly unusual case of mistaken identity that resulted in the kidnapping of an innocent 85-year-old grandfather.

    And on Tuesday morning, the worst fears of his Sydney family were realised: police announced they believed they had found the body of the widower, almost two weeks after he was taken.

    Today, crime reporter Riley Walter on a case that has gripped Sydney.

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    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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    21 mins
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