RNZ: Sunday Morning

Neil Mitchell is Professor of International Relations in the School of Public Policy at University College London.

Ezekiel and his devoted wife have decided to take advantage of the government's 'charter schools' initiative.

MIT - which was ranked the world's top university by QS University Rankings earlier this week - has led the way in making its course work freely available on the internet.

Dr Patricia O'Brien explores the friendship that was forged between Samoan nationalist leader Ta'isi Olaf Nelson and Maori politician Sir Maui Pomare. She talks about the role this played in the years of fraught relations between Samoa and New Zealand, and looks at the historical connections that were made through this friendship, between Samoans and Maori.

The boss of the nation's biggest daily paper on its tabloid transition; a top lawyer calls for a rethink of rules allowing cameras into our courts; how a notorious nickname stuck to a controversial criminal; a sudden surge of media interest in chickens.

64-year-old James Harris is a veteran trade unionist and longstanding leader of the US Socialist Workers Party. He has been active for more than four decades in the struggle for Black rights, protests against US wars from Vietnam to Afghanistan, and working class politics. He's also a candidate in the US presidential election.

Todd Niall explores whether Auckland is now on the right track to boost its economy.

A new addition to the programme from Wayne Brittenden, who has been Radio New Zealand's correspondent in several capital cities over the years. He will be giving us fresh insights into a wide variety of topics of national and international concern, followed by Chris Laidlaw's discussion of the issue with guests. Wayne is discussing civil liberties - timely in the light of the Julian Assange and Bradley Manning cases. Guests: Thomas Beagle from the New Zealand website TechLiberty; and civil liberties lawyer Stephen Rohde, chair of the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation in Southern California.

'Enemies: A History of the FBI' is a definitive account of the FBI's secret intelligence operations, from an author whose work on the Pentagon and the CIA won him the Pulitzer Prize. Tim Weiner talks to Chris Laidlaw about what his research revealed on J. Edgar Hoover, Martin Luther King, and the hidden side of America's War on Terror.

The Americans can't understand our Prime Minister's accent. We might have to help them or things could go very wrong in the Pacific.

In 1898, New Zealand became the first country in the world to introduce an old age pension; in 1926 it became the first to introduce a family benefit; then in the 1940s we led the way in introducing a universal family benefit. And each of those pioneering innovations was under-pinned by concepts of fairness. An historian, economists, and someone who works in the sector discuss the search for universal fairness in the welfare system.

Dr. Jägerskog is the director of Knowledge Services at the Stockholm International Water Institute, and editor of a new report that issues stern warnings on the future of global food and water supplies. It warns the whole world may be forced into a vegetarian diet by 2050 to cope with water shortages and feed an overpopulated planet.

Mediawatch talks to some overseas experts about the ways 'new media' are now colliding with the old - TV, radio and newspapers - in the digital age. Fast-growing online outlets now deliver news quickly, cheaply and directly to people, wherever they are. But by speeding up the news, are they also undermining it? And should the likes of Google contribute more to the creation of the content that they make so freely available online? Also: some startling mistakes made in recent reports of the death of the world's best-known names, and newspapers having a makeover.

Professor Susan Sawyer from the Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne, talks to Chris Laidlaw about young people's health worldwide, including discussion of such issues as smoking, obesity, mental illness, drugs and HIV/AIDS.

Megan Whelan considers the appalling violence and health statistics for many Pacific women and asks if more female MPs help?