In 2017, Curious Central West travelled far and wide to investigate stories that were complex and confronting, while others were cute and quirky.

How the Wiradjuri people, indigenous to the Central West of New South Wales, survived European settlement.

It's hard to imagine a subtropical island struggling with drought, but Norfolk Island has had only 12mm of rain all summer and dams and water tanks are running dry.

Perched 1,600 kilometres east of Brisbane, a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean hosts a landscape resembling a desert scene from the NT.

When the local RSL in Coonamble in central west New South Wales found itself in debt to the tune of $500,000, it was feared nothing could be done.

This state-of-the-art shearing shed hopes to attract and retain good shearers in a safe environment.

Thousands head to the tiny New South Wales town of Louth for a dusty race weekend amid the ongoing dry.

Uncle Dick and Aunty Ruth Carney share how they built their own 'piece of heaven'.

MORNING BRIEFING: Firefighters say it could take weeks, potentially months, to contain about five fires burning around Armidale and Tenterfield, while a woman is injured and a firearm stolen during a break and enter in Orana.

At the end of the bitumen road and surrounded by parched grazing land, Ivanhoe, like many outback towns, is fighting for survival.

The Yetta Dhinnakkal Centre, meaning "right pathway" in traditional language, was established as Australia's first prison exclusively for young Aboriginal men but next year it will close and locals are warning the impact will be disastrous.

The Bureau of Meteorology says almost 30 millimetres has fallen at Bourke in the state's upper-west but the widespread, heavy rain needed to end the drought is unlikely in the near future.

After years of funding cuts, many arts organisations will struggle to survive the COVID-19 pandemic without more government support. Playwright David Williamson and arts academic Jo Caust, discuss what needs to happened to ensure the sector survives.

Who are the Christian nationalists? What do they stand for and how influential are they in American politics?

On the anniversary of the Port Arthur massacre, we look at how Australia and America’s colonial gun-toting past converged for many years, and what made Australia taking a completely different path with regard to gun control

Academic and former Singaporean diplomat Kishore Mahbubani argues that the coronavirus pandemic will accelerate a power-shift, from west to east.

The UN Security Council plans to call for a 90-day 'humanitarian pause' in conflicts worldwide as part of the ongoing struggle against the COVID-19 pandemic. It's hoped that in some of the world's worst conflict zones, this could lay the groundwork for longer term peace agreements.

It was not only the spice trade, science, commerce and the arts that flourished in the Dutch Golden Age of the 17th century. Publishing also exploded and an innovation called advertising sustains it and ushers in the modern world.

Instinctively we believe that everyone's life matters, that we're all important and of equal value but Howard Friedman, in his new book, shows that inequalities abound. 

Crosswords are a daily devotion, an obsession even, for millions. But where did the crossword start, and how did it become a staple of any newspaper worth its salt?

Donald Trump has repeatedly accused the 'deep state' in America of attempting to undermine his presidency. But what is the 'deep state' that Trump is referring to, and does it actually exist?

The Federal Writers' Project, established by President Roosevelt in July 1935 as part of the New Deal, provided jobs for out-of-work writers during the Great Depression. Australian authors Jeff Sparrow and James Bradley discuss whether a similar literary stimulus package could work today.

Cuban doctors and nurses have been working in some of the most challenging emergencies around the globe for many years including the Ebola crisis in West Africa and the aftermath of Chernobyl. Now they are working to treat patients with COVID-19 in 22 countries including Italy.

Indicted as a mass murderer in 1945, prominent Nazi Otto von Wachter goes underground. In a revealing and personal account, renowned human rights barrister, Philippe Sands retraces his movements and tells the intimate story of the inter-generational impact of such crimes.

Why might the court intervene when a devout Jehovah Witness parent refuses a life-saving blood transfer to their child? What about cultural and traditional beliefs that clash with new ‘norms’ of society? More specific descriptions of what make a family of defines gender for example. Has the law has kept up with the changing society it regulates?

A compelling account of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident . Not only did the fallout contaminate half of Europe it changed the course of history. When the nuclear reactor exploded it set off another explosion that no-one had predicted -the collapse of the Soviet Union.  

Is modern capitalism, itself, a threat to the survival of capitalism? Or will corporations always find a way to monetise misery? Paul Barclay speaks to Yanis Varoufakis and Antony Loewenstein

When you look in the mirror you might see your mothers eyes or your father’s chin. But have you inherited more than these physical characteristics? Beyond a genetic predisposition to illness , can you inherit a tendency to be religious or obese? Are the life experiences of previous generations shaping the way you behave now?  

Mahatma Gandhi lived a life committed to social justice and human rights. In this year's lecture to honour his memory five Australian women talk about their work in indigenous communities, for people with disabilities, refugees , LGBTIQ and campaigns to reduce domestic violence.

Jan Fran campaigns for the power of girls. Why is it that girls are still less likely to work and learn than boys? Why are girls still expected to adapt and keep the peace instead of speaking out? A major factor that empowers girls, is it to give them self-confidence at an early age and to tell them that the world is theirs to conquer.

Writing about 'place' is more than parachuting into an unfamiliar location, meeting a few people, rehashing well-worn clichés, then flying out again. Three writers discuss the places they written about, and how to capture the essence of people and place.

The world’s first university was founded in Bologna, Italy in 1088. The university has been an enduring institution. But universities are confronting big challenges - and not just COVID19. The world has changed. So how much do universities need to adapt in response? What is their future?

The second part of a discussion examining the future of the university in a post-COVID19 world. The university has been an enduring institution, going back nearly a thousand years, but it is confronting a time of massive disruption. How should universities change and adapt to meet the new challenges, without compromising their essential values?

Indigenous women who are victims of family violence often also suffer from multiple disadvantage. A specialist indigenous legal service provides culturally appropriate support and counselling. And the long struggle for indigenous women to gain equal voting rights with their white sisters.

Courts of law exist for good reason, but the judicial process can also retraumatize, rather than heal, victims and witnesses who are exposed to it. Therapeutic jurisprudence offers a different approach

Small is beautiful as the saying goes. But there’s small and then there’s nano small. Engineers who work in the nano world are working with single atoms. Nanotechnology helps to power your mobile phone and nano machines might one day be working in your body to deliver medical treatment.

Most every society has fermented alcoholic beverages - Mexican pulque, Peruvian chicha, Japanese sake, Indian palm toddy, African sorghum beer. But the German lager beer has largely displaced these local brewing traditions over the last 200 years to become a global consumer icon. That has many reasons—trade, migration, colonialism—but the success of lager lies also in the fact that it's so bland.

Paul Robeson was an African American singer, film star, scholar, athlete, civil rights champion and radical political activist. What is his legacy today?

Will personal freedom always give way to social control in China? Families have lived through a wave of revolutions in communist China and the legacy flows down the generations. Three authors talk about the cycle of openness and repression from the Cultural revolution to Tiananmen Square as individual freedoms are tolerated and then repressed to meet the goals of China's communist rulers.

How do you fancy a theory describing everything in the world and the whole universe? Physicists have been trying to find a universal theory for centuries. Progress has been made: BBC’s Jim Al-Khalili describes the three pillars of modern physics: quantum theory, relativity, and thermodynamics. But is physics any closer to finding the ONE theory that explains it all?

For a long time she was misunderstood, erroneously known as the “last of her race”, and almost invariably depicted as tragic figure.  But there is so much more to indigenous Tasmanian woman, Truganini.