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Current affairs investigative journalism: exploring new ideas and analysing society in lively on-the-road documentary style. Primary Format : Other Also Listed as: Other City : Unknown State/Province : Unknown Country : Australia Country : OC User Tags: User Votes: RSS Feed Website People found this Podcast Searching for: cum | Australian | View this Podcast on a Google Map. Add to iTunes Text Only listing of Background Briefing Podcasts Trumix.com listings available of Background Briefing Podcasts Click Here to Update the directory of this podcasts programs.

Trumix.com listings available of Background Briefing Podcasts Build your own playlists with this podcast. 2008-10-05 Remittances - flying money About $500 billion flows around the world as migrant workers send money home. It's largely by-passing banks and corporations, even governments, but they all want a slice of the action. Reporter Lorena Allam. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 2008-09-28 Future of noise Most people rate noise as a bigger problem than rats, drugs, or dog poo. It's highest on the list of citizen complaints, but it's listed low by councils and politicians. But noise can have cultural value too. Hagar Cohen reports. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 2008-09-21 Population control Are you worried about the future of the environment, or war, or hordes of refugees? The solution is not to manipulate population growth. Past results have been tragic, and ineffectual. Historian Professor Matthew Connelly of Columbia University proposes some alternatives. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 2008-09-14 Cloud computing Google's Chrome, and others, offer easier, smoother, faster servers into their gated internet gardens, where all things are known. It's the Petabyte Age, and there be beasties. Reporter Stan Correy. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 2008-06-08 Banking on gas Australia's sitting on some of the biggest natural gas fields in the world - and other energy-starved, ravenous nations are starting to bid for it. Australia will have to do some soul searching about how much we keep for ourselves and who to sell it to. Reporter, Ian Townsend. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 2008-06-01 Private spooks The use of private military companies is now widespread, but now there are also private intelligence organisations working closely with government. Business is booming and the worlds biggest private equity company, Carlyle, has just bought part of the big intelligence company, Booz Allen Hamilton. They're active in Australia, too. Reporter Stan Correy. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 2008-05-18 Peddling influence and money A new register of some of the biggest "third party" lobbyists and their clients will go some way to making public who has access to government in Canberra. But most lobbying and schmoozing will continue unchecked through old networks, secret meetings, and confidential discussions. Reporter, Erica Vowles. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 2008-05-11 Organised crime around the world Organised crime is said to be the biggest and most influential business in the world, and it got bigger and richer when the cold war ended. In some countries it is part of government, in others authorities are struggling against the tide. BBC World Service Documentaries. Due to copyright restrictions there will be no podcast or transcript available for this program. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 2008-05-04 One family farm Today's generation of farmers is experiencing unrelenting change - climate change, drought, globalisation and plummeting incomes. Many families are finding the pressures too much to bear. Reporter Di Martin grew up in sheep and wheat country, and tells the story of one of her cousins, as he puts his property on the market. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 2008-04-27 The allergy generation and the EpiPen epidemic Allergies to everything from dust, to cats, to peanuts are hitting young children hard, and doctors don´t really understand why or what to do. Long held theories are changing, and there's great confusion. Reporter Ian Townsend. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 2008-04-20 Rugby League: More than just a game One hundred years ago this month, there was social ferment in Australia. Industrial unrest, crime and political changes were widespread giving the working class a new confidence. And in an astonishing series of events and people, football was changing forever. Rugby League was born. Reporter Stan Correy. View the documents referred to in the program, including newspaper articles from 1907-1908, archival material from the Royal Commission and other memorabilia from the early days of rugby l ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 2008-04-13 Israel: selling out secularism? The Olmert government is dependent on the support of the extremist, ultra orthodox religious movement in Israel. They now make up 10 per cent of the population, and make no secret of their desire for Israel to become a religiously based state. Reporter Hagar Cohen Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 2008-04-06 The climate engineers For years it's been one of the science community's great taboos but the idea of global climate control is starting to be openly discussed. Ideas like placing giant mirrors in space or firing sulphur particles into the stratosphere to cool the planet are no longer just in the domain of science fiction. Many scientists now believe the time for these ideas will come. Reporter, Wendy Carlisle Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 2008-03-30 The three trillion dollar war Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, and co-author Linda Bilmes, argue the Iraq war has led directly to America's current economic crisis. The price of a barrel of oil has quadrupled since the war began and the total cost of the invasion is staggering. Stiglitz and Bilmes describe how they came to the figure of three trillion dollars, and how difficult such an estimate is to achieve in the face of the Pentagon's accounting procedures. This talk was recorded at the Commonwealth Cl ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 2008-03-23 Australia's new baby boom An extra 30,000 births a year has caught government by surprise, with immediate and long term consequences. Reporter: Rachel Carbonell Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 2008-03-16 Sports wars While the success of the 27 year old Australian Institute of Sport has been the envy of other nations, the expertise it has bred is being used against us, and Australia risks falling behind in the sports science arms race. Reporter Ian Townsend Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 2008-03-09 After the KGB As the former KGB man Vladimir Putin passes the presidential baton to his nominated successor, the BBC's Martin Sixsmith looks at the remarkable resurgence of the Russian secret service. How did the 'new KGB', the FSB, manage to become so strong, so rich and so deeply entrenched in running the country. Please note that due to copyright restrictions there will be no audio available for download or streaming. See the links below to the original BBC broadcasts. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 2008-03-02 Sovereign wealth funds As the effects of the sub-prime credit crunch continue to be felt around the world, the new global investors bailing out Wall Street banks are the sovereign wealth funds. These are the investment vehicles of cashed up Arab and Asian governments which are also buying into the mining boom in Australia. While their money is welcomed, are there political motivations behind the investments? Reporter: Stan Correy Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 2008-02-24 Paying the medical piper Many GPs get regular education over the year, for up to date information on modern medical and prescribing practices. We examine aspects of this education of GPs and how they may be influenced by drug company sponsors. Reporter, Ray Moynihan. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 2008-02-17 Where is the Middle Class? Princeton Professor of Economics Paul Krugman talks about how the New Deal society has been dismantled in America, and the reasons for it. He brings it back to a revival of Southern issues about race being used by the 'Movement Conservatives' to undo various social policies during the present administration. Paul Krugman is also a writer and columnist for the New York Times. (Originally broadcast on 25 November 2007.) Radio National often provides links to external websites to complement p ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 2008-02-10 Greenwashing It's not easy being green; Kermit's lament haunts us as we are bombarded with advertising, labels and marketing promising consumers a positive outcome for the environment. How much of it is deceptive and misleading? Reporter Rachel Carbonell. Image Source: Getty Images Photographer: Ian Waldie Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 2008-02-03 Lost planes, lost men Hundreds of Australian war planes crashed in Queensland, PNG, and the Pacific during WW2. Many haven't been found, and the remains of their crew still lie where they crashed. There's a global trade in souveniring these wrecks, and surprising things are found in the jungles, the mountains and the seas. Reporter Ian Townsend. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 2008-01-27 Fur families KPMG analyst Bernard Salt says that within a few years 30 percent of people will live alone. The accompanying boom in pets is a looming political reality, and may even become an IR issue. It's good news for the pet food business. Already households spend more on pets than on childcare. Reporter, Wendy Carlisle. (Originally broadcast 28th October 2007) See original photo gallery and story Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 2008-01-20 Your money dot con No one's telling how much of our money is being stolen through the Internet because no one wants us to lose confidence in the system. The banks are making so much money out of it, they prefer to wear the costs or push them down to the customer. In the meantime, everyone has a story and global criminals are stalking our accounts, our phones and our PCs. Reporter: Ian Townsend. (Originally broadcast on 24th June 2007) Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 2008-01-13 Atul Gawande He is a professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School, and has several other prestigious roles in the US health policy and public health system. As well, he's a practising doctor and surgeon, editor, author, and New York Magazine writer. Atul Gawande discusses what makes a good doctor, how hospitals can be improved, and what he has learnt about the imperfect science of medicine. (Originally broadcast 3rd June 2007) Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 2008-01-06 Stronger, smarter, nicer humans Professor Julian Savulescu is an eminent ethicist from Oxford University. He believes we should proceed with research into enhancing not only the genetics of fighting disease, but the genetics and pharmacology of improving IQ, behaviour, mood, character and morality. He argues there are immense benefits, not only for individuals, but for society as a whole. Only by knowing, can we prevent the abuses of knowledge. A lecture from the Sydney Ideas series at the University of Sydney. (Originall ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 2007-12-30 Beautiful science Pulitzer prize winning science writer Natalie Angier talks in an inspiring and entertaining way about the basics of science: from the wonders of the cell and bacteria to the mysteries of the night sky and the cultures of chimpanzees, to name a few. Science is in flux as it faces pressures from both faith-based politics in the US, and the push towards privatisation of scientific knowledge through patenting. (Originally broadcast 15th July 2007) Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 2007-12-23 Tackling Indonesian terror In a first for the international media, Bali bomber Ali Imron is let out of prison to explain why he's now working to stop terrorism. In this exclusive interview, Ali Imron tells of how he's battling with his radical brothers to prevent further violence. It's just one part of Indonesia's ground breaking and controversial counter terrorism strategy. Reporter: Di Martin. (Originally broadcast 23rd September 2007) See original photo gallery and story. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 2007-12-16 Climate and councils The end of soaring waterfront properties is in sight. Insurers have begun writing policies to cover plummeting land values as climate change predictions worsen. Inundation is the big worry for coastal councils. It's buyer beware in this legal grey area. Reporter Di Martin. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 2008-05-25 The Khan network Uranium is now a hot energy property, and there's big business in the nuclear trade. An investigation of the business of the bomb - from South Africa in the 80s to today - shows that nothing, it seems, is going to stop the worlds race to nuclear. American RadioWorks with the Center for Independent Reporting. Due to copyright reasons there will be no transcript or podcast of this program. See the link below to the original program. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website