Sunday Morning for Sunday 2 July 2023

8:10 Jack Watling: Putin after Prigozhin 

Russia’s government is moving to demonstrate it still has control over the country, following a brief mutiny by one of the country’s most powerful military groups. 

Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin flew to Belarus in exile on Tuesday (June 27), after his fighters protested of the Russian Military’s handling of the Ukraine conflict. 

Ukraine hopes the chaos caused by the mutiny attempt will undermine Russian defences, as it presses a counteroffensive to recapture occupied territory. 

Dr Jack Watling is the senior research fellow for land warfare at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), the world’s oldest and the UK’s leading defence and security thinktank. Originally from New Zealand, he has spent periods of time since this war began on the ground with the armed forces in Ukraine, and has won international media awards for his analysis. 

8:30 Nigel Latta: The changing face of intergenerational wealth  

New research shows when it comes time for New Zealanders to think about their legacy, money is not top of mind. 

Public Trust has commissioned a survey on intergenerational wealth which found 71 percent of people do want to leave a financial legacy. 

However an even greater number, 85 percent of people, want to pass on an emotional legacy - things like values to live by, happiness and a good upbringing. 

But one’s upbringing does appear to impact how they think about what they want to leave behind. 

Clinical psychologist Nigel Latta has shared insights from the survey at launch events in Wellington and Auckland. 

9:10 Mediawatch 

This week Mediawatch looks at a new survey which found that the arts and culture gets only a half of the coverage that our media devote to sports. A leading local critic tells Mediawatch how to improve that - and the quality of arts criticism.  

Mediawatch also looks at a watchdog's ruling on broadcasts that downplayed the danger of Cyclone Gabrielle earlier this year. 

9:30 Avi Loeb: Underwater hunt for alien debris  

In 2014, an interstellar object - thought to be from another star system - streaked across Earth's skies as a meteor, then crashed into the Pacific Ocean near Papua New Guinea.  

Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb is now leading a sea-going search, combing the ocean floor with what's essentially a large magnet, hoping to pick up fragments of that object.  

He's found bits of wire, tiny aluminum shards and volcanic ash. And this week (June 21, 2023), Loeb reported that his team has found tiny metallic spherules whose composition suggests an unearthly origin.  

10:06 Calling Home: Brendan Lynch in The Dolomites, Italy 

Brendan Lynch was born in Gore, but he grew up in Timaru. He now lives in a village in a beautiful valley in south Tyrol, up among the famous Dolomites. The Dolomites, also known as the pale mountains, are a spectacular range of peaks in northeastern Italy.  

In a valley below, with homes on the lower mountain slopes, is the village of Ortisei, a ski and outdoor sports centre, and a jumping off place for endless trails up into gorgeous alpine meadows and pine forests. 

10:32 Robert Pagliarini: Sudden Wealth Syndrome 

25% of all kiwis play Lotto every week, more so after a night with a huge jackpot like that last week. 

Lottery disasters have proven popular fodder for the media for a long time. We hear about people whose lives were ruined by big wins. We of course never hear from the people who keep it a secret. 

Robert Pagliarini is the president of Pacifica Wealth Advisors in California. He has a PhD in financial and retirement planning and specialises in helping clients cope with what he refers to as sudden wealth syndrome, and he wrote another book called the Sudden Wealth Solution. 

10:50 Ashley Brown: Championing the cello 

ABC Classic has run a poll of Australians to ascertain the nation's favourite classical instrument.  

The soprano singing voice came in at no. 21; the male tenor voice at no. 17. But voices in unison, choral voices, choirs, were far more popular at no.9. 

At number 2 and 3 respectively came the piano and the violin, but Australia's favourite classical instrument is the one that is said to be closest to the human voice, the cello. 

Ashley Brown is a great cellist. His accolades include prizes at the Adam International Cello Competition and the ROSL Music Competition in London. He studied at Canterbury and Yale Universities, he's performed in Paris, London and New York, and at the moment he's the cellist with NZ Trio.  

11:10 Martin Ford: The technology set to change our lives

We know we carry AI in our pockets every day, as people are fond of saying. Martin Ford says we're about to see the importance of an invention that's on a par with electricity in terms of its coming effects on our lives. 

Martin is the author of The Rise of the Robots and now Rule of the Robots: How Artificial Intelligence Will Transform Everything. The first book was a NY Times best-seller, and the Financial Times Book Of The Year in 2015. 

For one of his books - Architects of Intelligence: The Truth about AI from the People Building It - Martin sought opinions from many prominent figures in the field, so there's collective wisdom at play in the predictions as well as his own.

11:37 William Fajzel: A day in the life of the world  

At McGill University’s Earth System Dynamics Laboratory in Montreal, Canada, a team has found out how the average person spends each 24 hours.   

The researchers used a variety of methods including time surveys and labour force surveys conducted in countries like NZ to get an overview of our life experience, our societies and our personal wellbeing.  

William Fajzel was the lead author of this study. He kindly takes time out from a long holiday weekend in Canada to tell us more.