There have been protests on Melbourne’s streets this week, but who is organising them? And are there really links with far right groups? And Scott Morrison has been in the US this week, selling the benefits of the new submarine deal. But can he end the diplomatic stoush over the AUKUS defence deal?

The Morrison government has deepened Australia's dependence on the US for its defence, signing up for an increased US military presence in Australia and a fleet of nuclear powered submarines using US technology. How could they be used to defend Australia? Also, a call to give no COVID boosters this year in Australia, and for a strategic approach to future booster allocation.

20 years after 9/11, we look at how the attacks fuelled American xenophobia and blinded the US to grave issues beyond terrorism. A view from a Pulitzer Prize winning foreign policy writer, Fred Kaplan, a witness to the Twin Towers catastrophe. Also why national debate about “opening up” must include wider use of rapid testing.

Australia is borrowing Pfizer jabs, while it waits for purchases to arrive. But when might mRNA vaccines be made onshore? And Indigenous communities are being targeted with anti-vaccination propaganda. We look at what went wrong with the rollout in Indigenous communities.

As NSW charts a path to schools opening, experts say measuring and filtering classroom air is essential, alongside masks and vaccines, as we “learn to live with COVID". And from a mythically resistant valley, Afghanistan’s Taliban resistance assembles, who are they and what is the plan?

NSW case numbers skyrocketed this week, with the Premier extending the lockdown and admitting the state was no longer chasing “covid zero”. What does it mean for NSW and Australia’s plans to open up? And the Taliban is back in control in Afghanistan, we look at the history of the group and what it means for the future of the country.