Rear Vision — How History Shaped Today

Hamas' surprise attack on Israel last month, was immediately compared to the 1973 Yom Kippur War. It was that conflict which forced Israel to start negotiating with Egypt and eventually to an historical peace agreement between Egypt and Israel. We examine how that peace deal was achieved, what impact it had on the PLO and Palestinian struggle and why it matters in the current conflict between Hama...

The assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 shock America and set in train a myriad of conspiracy theories. 60 years on - after numerous inquiries, endless of books, and a feature film – the truth about the Kennedy assassination and the subsequent murder of Lee Harvey Oswald is still being debated. Rear Vision looks at the assassination and at how the conspiracy theories have reshaped A...

Humans have been processing food for thousands of years.  But now a more complex type of production dominates our diets, ultra-processed foods. What makes a food ultra-processed and how do they affect our health?    

Since former intelligence official David Grusch made his explosive claims about the US government possessing ‘non-human’ crashed craft, the world has been gripped by another bout of UFO fever. In this Rear Vision, we track our modern obsession with this phenomenon, from the ‘flying saucers’ of the 1940’s to the ‘UAPs’ of today.

The Hamas attack on Israel is being called the country’s 9/11 and represent a devastating failure of Intelligence.  How did Israeli intelligence miss the planning for this attack and underestimate the capabilities of Hamas so profoundly?  But this is not the first time the most suffocated intelligent agencies in the world have been taken by surprise.  We take a look at some of the world’s most stu...

Hamas’s coordinated attack on Israel on October 7 has placed the Gaza Strip at the centre of a full-scale military conflict between Hamas and Israel. How and why has this tiny sliver of land, squashed between Israel and the Mediterranean Sea became the epicentre of tension and conflict in the Middle East?

Donald Trump famously began his career as a builder and developer by capitalising on his father’s successful business.  But then Trump identified something even more valuable: his personal brand.  We look at how Donald Trump built his fortune and ask, what's the value of his brand today?

Derna a port city in eastern Libya, lost over 11 thousand of its citizens on the 10/11 of September when a wall of water swept a large part of the city. The immediate cause of the disaster in Derna was the catastrophic failures of two dams. The longer-term cause - was the ongoing failure of the Libyan state. So why is Libya, one of the richest nations in North Africa a failed state? That’s the que...

Qantas once one of the best and most respected airlines in the sky is now in damage control. One of the many accusations being directed at Qantas is that it's hoarding all the best take-off and landing slots at Sydney Airport. It’s brought attention to a critical system in global aviation called slot co-ordination. What are the rules and does it lead to flight cancellations and a lack of competiti...

Donald Trump has several of legal problems - the most recent being in the state of Georgia. Where he and 18 co-defendants have been charged under Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisations Act – otherwise known as RICO. Originally created to fight the growth of the Mafia - today RICO Acts are used in the prosecution of white-collar crime and political corruption. Understand RICO and...

On the 14th of October we'll all be voting in a referendum on changing the constitution to recognised Indigenous Australia’s by the establishment of an Indigenous Voice to Parliament. For over 30 years Norway, Sweden and Finland have all had such bodies known as Nordic Sami parliaments. Each of these bodies makes representations to the national government on matters impacting Sámi people. So how d...

Australia is experiencing a spike in the number of people dying on our roads particularly in NSW and VIC.  Two states that were global leaders in road safety with mandatory seatbelts and random breath testing. How did Australia manage to introduce such bold safety measures and are our standards slipping? 

Rents in Australia have risen sharply during the past three years, and it’s become a political issue. The Greens are demanding the introduction of rent controls, but that idea has been rejected by most federal and state leaders. What do we mean when we talk about rent controls, how effective are they at controlling rising rents and what impact do they have on the rental market

Real estate has been the engine of the Chinese economy for decades, but the boom is over. And crisis is deliberate, brought on by Beijing's strategy to dismantle their model of debt fuelled development. Now the Chinese economy is in trouble and consumer confidence is plummeting. So how did their lucrative property sector turn into a liability?

For over a decade Niger in West Africa was seen as the beacon of democracy. That all changed in July 2023 when the elected President was ousted in a military coup. It was the fifth military coup in the region in the past 2 years. A region that was once a French colony and is today the epicentre of Islamic extremism. What happening in West Africa and why should we care.

Amazon, Apple, Meta, Alphabet and Microsoft are some of the most impactful corporations to ever come out of the United States. And their innovation has transformed our lives. But after decades of unchecked growth are these companies now too powerful for regulators to ignore? The United States has had antitrust laws for over a century so why has enforcement been dormant for so long?

Israel has two institutions underpinning its political system - its parliament, the Knesset, and its judiciary - but it doesn’t have a written constitutions setting out the powers of these two institutions. Now the right-wing coalition led by Benjaman Netanyahu is determined to assert the power of the Knesset over the courts and its leading to a constitutional crisis.

Hollywood has come to a standstill with actors and writers on strike, from the most famous to the bit player.  It's a dispute not just about money but the use of artificial intelligence and the way TV and movies are made.    But it's not the first-time workers in Hollywood have had to face down bosses.  The story of Hollywood and its current existential crisis. 

Through most of the 20th centuries mercenaries didn’t exist but that was an anomaly - historically mercenaries have always played a major role in conflicts as they are increasing doing in the 21st century. So, who are the mercenaries, who employees them and what impact have they had on warfare. Guests Dr Sean McFate is a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, a Washington DC think tank, and a prof...

Lithium-ion batteries power everything from consumer goods, electric vehicles, large storage batteries and everything else we need to achieve net zero. While China currently dominates the global supply chain for lithium batteries, it relies on Australia for the raw material. But there are other players in the lithium market especially from South America, in a region known as the Lithium Triangle,...

Australia is facing a housing crisis - there is a shortage of affordable housing, essential workers can no longer live in the areas they work, and families are finding themselves homeless. While our politicians are struggling to come up with ideas to solve this crisis, one city that has managed to develop a housing strategy that works for most of its citizens - Vienna. Guests Julia Anna Schranz is...

Following controversies involving films like 'Top Gun', 'Mulan' and now 'Barbie', there's been growing pushback against China's perceived influence over Hollywood. But are these calls too little, too late?

Jet streams are narrow bands of strong winds in the upper atmosphere.  This is the story of how they were discovered and what can happen when they behave in unexpected ways.

The strikes and street protests across France in the first months of this year were part of an ultimately failed attempt to stop the French government raising the pension age from 62 to 64. Age pensions were established as a means of preventing poverty in old age and they were originally associated with a compulsory retirement age. The range and diversity of schemes for funding old age evolved dur...

The story of diet drugs is one full of miracle cures that don't live up to the hype or come with serious side effects. There's a new class of drugs being touted as a revolution in weight loss. But will the future of diet drugs just end up looking a lot like the past?