Rear Visio‪n‬ ABC Podcasts

It was the only human infectious disease we've ever managed to wipe out. Smallpox, a disease of fluid-filled blisters, was frequently fatal. It was defeated by the world's first vaccine. Are there any lessons for COVID?

The first 100 days of any US presidency are critical, so what can President Biden learn from Franklin Delano Roosevelt? FDR led the United States through the depression and in his first 100 days he steered 16 major pieces of legislation through Congress and convinced the American public that they could both trust and rely on the government.

How did FDR achieve this legislative feat and could the Biden administration replicate it?

When Mao died in 1976, China was unable to feed its people, cut off from the rest of the world. How did it become today's economic giant?

Since the rise to power of Xi Jinping in 2013, governments across the globe are having to learn how deal with an assertive and powerful China determined to put its stamp on international affairs. Over the next two weeks we’ll trace the diplomatic and economic transformation of China, beginning in 1972 with the meeting between US President Nixon and Chairman Mao.

Nancy Pelosi is Speaker of the House of Representative and third in line to the President of the United States. For over ten years she has been the most powerful woman in US politics. And over the past four years the key political opposition to President Trump.

So, who is Nancy Pelosi and how has this almost 80-year-old woman been able to give Donald Trump a run for his money?

Joe Biden has just become the 46 President of the United States. Twice before he ran for the Democrat presidential nomination twice and both times been defeated soundly. 

Born in 1942 he has spent most of his working life in the US Senate, except for the eight years as Vice President in the Obama administration. What does his record in the Senator, and his previous attempts at the presidency tell us about what kind of a President he might make?