Big Brother contestant Merlin Luck got his pro-asylum seeker message across to a massive national audience last month when he turned his eviction interview into a silent protest. He's now broken his silence and is travelling Australia meeting detainees and refugee activist groups.

Father Tony Pearson has spent the last few years assisting Afghan refugees through the Otherway Centre in Adelaide. He has just returned from visiting Afghanistan and meeting the families of many Australian asylum seekers including that of the Afghan TPV holder who committed suicide last year becasue of uncertainty about his future.

This week has seen the hurried handover of sovereignty to Iraq and the beginnnings of the very public trial of Saddam Hussein. But former military man Brian Cloughley says power still really resides with the US who retain 160,00 troops in the country and the right to attack or detain without consulting Iraqi authorities.

The Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts is currently hearing submissions into a proposal to set up an indigenous television network. Filmmaker Rachel Perkins says it has the potential to culturally revitalise regional indigenous Australia and to preserve rapidly disappearing indigenous languages.

John Logsdon is director of the Space Policy Unit of George Washington University, and currently visiting Australia. He says the loss of the crew of the Colombia and the ongoing personal tragedy of that loss for the families has dealt the US space program a severe blow.