Late Night Live — Full program podcast · ABC Australia

Anna Henderson's Canberra, Economist journalist Sophie Pedder on President Macron's support for Lebanon, and why the power of the mafia - in multiple cultures - still prevails.

·54 min·5 clips

David Marr opens Late Night Live from Gadigal Land in Sydney. He starts with Canberra, with Anna Henderson, chief political correspondent for SBS, as the first stop in the evening's political sweep. The program then pivots to France's role in the war around Lebanon, with Emmanuel Macron promising to back Lebanon if Israel once again invades that country. Marr frames the move as a question of what France can actually do. Sophie Pedder from The Economist's podcast, Paris Bureau, joins to discuss the role of France in the escalating war. She explains that the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier is on its way to the eastern Mediterranean and that it carries aircraft and helicopters as well as symbolic weight. The conversation keeps circling back to one hard fact: France can signal and support, but it cannot do everything by itself. The program then turns to a new study of mafias and their staying power. Ryan Gingeris' book supplies the frame for that discussion, with La Casa Nostra in Sicily, the Gambinos in New York, and the Yakuza in Japan as examples. The point is survival, flourishing, and the way mafias shape nations. The hour closes with a preview of Bruce Shapiro taking us back into Trump's America.

As heard by us

A segmented but sturdy hour that moves from politics in Canberra to France and on to the mafia.

Late Night Live stays lively as it moves from Canberra with Anna Henderson to Sophie Pedder on France, Emmanuel Macron, and the war in Lebanon, then into a look at how mafias are still surviving and flourishing.

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Why you'd press play

For a late-night mix of Canberra politics, France in the Lebanon war, and a global look at how mafias survive.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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