Background Briefing

They shun contact with the world. Not just with technology, books, radio and TV, but also other people. They do not vote, because voting interferes with God's right to ordain who rules. But Satan has infiltrated democracy and the Exclusive Brethren have started putting money and time into political campaigns.

The worlds biggest retail company, Wal-Mart, is China's fourth largest trading partner, and the result is one of the most dramatic economic shifts since the industrial revolution. Tariffs are again in the air. There is international unease about labour laws, fair trade or free trade and the power of economic supremacy.

There is something seriously wrong with the Labor Party. Membership is shrinking and the number of fully active members is thought to be as low as 1,000 people in NSW. Has the party of reform lost the capacity to reform itself? Is the party on the road to extinction? James Carleton talks to party insiders about how the Australian Labor Party can remain relevant in the 21st century.

Schapelle, Pauline and Lindy each became a lighting rod for our anxieties about motherhood, infanticide, deserts, drugs, Bali bombings, or the splintering of political consensus.

Adviser to presidents, influential and respected economist, J.K. Galbraith is now 97. He has 52 PhDs and has written 48 books, and his name attracts countless hits on the web. Biographer Richard Parker gives a picture of the man.

There's yet another paradigm shift in new technology — Podcasting, which cuts out the advertisers, commercial DJs, and program directors. Young people order only what they want, and get it free. There's yet another paradigm shift in new technology — Podcasting, which cuts out the advertisers, commercial DJs, and program directors. Young people order only what they want, and get it free. A new tech...

Seven years ago, a 14-year old girl named Leigh Leigh was violently assaulted, raped and murdered at a beach party in Newcastle. Background Briefing revisits that night and unearths the bones of an investigation that, it seems, never got it right.

Newt Gingrich is the speaker of the US Congress, which makes him third in line for the presidency. He is a controversial figure who has put forward policies like putting street kids into orphanages and taking away welfare from teenage mothers. Unsurprisingly he has been demonised by liberals.

Japan is planning to produce a series of fast-breeder nuclear reactors that require the importation of nuclear materials by sea.

It's the last day of the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. The agenda has been finalised, the convention signed, or not signed as the case may be, and the world leaders have had their say. Presidents, prime ministers and kings have been speaking solidly now back-to back for seven minutes each for two days. There have been some familiar themes - the history of the moment, the impending ecological cri...