Background Briefing

Soccer is the biggest sport in the world and an enormous business. Millions can be lost through a wrong call made by a person with a whistle. Why won't FIFA allow the technology now common in other sports? The controversy is raging over line ball technology. From the UK, sports reporter Tim Long.

Renowned Israeli writer, poet, activist, and historian Amos Oz talks about the most urgent topic of our time—fanatics on all sides of politics and religion. If the UN agrees to recognise Palestine he hopes Israel will be the first to embrace the decision—and move on from there. The Ervin Graf Memorial Oration at the Shalom Institute.

Where does the buck stop when big banks and corporations, even nations collapse. Who signs off on the books? The auditors or the directors of the board? And who should tell investors when there's something shifty going on? Who are the auditors answerable to? Reporter, Stan Correy.

In the first five months of this year, an astonishing 18,500 Mexicans have been murdered - with very few convictions. In the last five years 66 journalists have been murdered. Mexico is a failed state with corruption, no rule of law, and spin and lies all around - including in America. The speaker is American non-fiction writer Charles Bowden.

Legislation before the Senate now may take some of the heat out of tragic confusion over shared, or 'equal time parenting', and the role of violence in Family Law decision making. Research shows children of high conflict families, forced into equal time, are suffering. Reporter Brendan King.

Every year more than 200 people in Queensland get very sick with a nasty, little understood, hard-to-treat type of bacteria. Other states report none. Why? Our water supply is now so complex, things are overlooked. Reporter, Ian Townsend.

The Scottish peer Lord Monckton has been raising hell against the carbon tax in barnstorming rallies and public meetings around the country. But just who is Lord Monckton and who are the forces behind him? Chief amongst them a mysterious group called the Galileo Movement and mining magnate and now media player Gina Rinehart. Reporter Wendy Carlisle.

It's tricky territory. No one agrees on one definition, and what is bullying to one person is normal behaviour to another. But who investigates bullying, and is that process working? First-hand accounts from people who believe the system let them down. Reporter: Hagar Cohen

There are 300,000 Vietnamese still missing in action and their souls haunt the living. Real or metaphorical, these ghosts are disrupting society. Some American veterans calm their own souls by helping to find and properly bury these war dead. BBC World Service documentary.

It's coming fast, the digital hub where i-pads talk to mobile phones, computers talk to TVs, TVs have hundreds of apps, and you can choose and change with your magical remote wand. But, big but, who is in charge of customer service for all these devices when something goes phut? Reporter Stan Correy