IT IS ALWAYS difficult to make direct comparisons between refugee determination procedures in different countries with different legal systems, but the most recent figures from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees suggest that Australia’s asylum record is entirely unremarkable.

CROWDS flocking to Adelaide’s Botanic Park for the recent WOMADelaide festival were treated to an innovation: a talkfest on top of the music. Together with the twenty-six groups playing at the biggest world music festival outside Britain, where Womad started, “The Planet Talks” marked the Adelaide event’s twenty-first birthday.

WITH last week’s federal budget slashing the forecast revenue from Australia’s carbon pricing scheme for the second half of this decade, it’s a good time to have a closer look at the Gillard government’s decision to link the scheme with its embattled European counterpart from 1 July 2015.

Australia’s largest cities still rely heavily on massive investments in rail before the second world war. With renewed interest in rail as a way of dealing with congestion, Peter Mares looks at what history can tell us about the value of reinvesting in railways.

With global trade negotiations stalled, Australia is attempting to navigate between the competing demands of two giants, writes Jock Given in Inside Story.