The Global Story

We are away for Christmas, so this is a repeat of a previous episode.

For much of the 21st century, our social lives have been shaped, at least in part, on the internet. But in an age of influencers, generative AI, complex algorithms, and politically entangled technocrats, some users say social media is growing less, well, social.

So, is social media dead? Or is it just becoming something else? We speak with New Yorker staff writer...

We are away for Christmas, so this is a repeat of a previous episode.

In September, President Trump and the U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. held a press conference in which they made extraordinary new claims about autism. They suggested a potential link between the use of Tylenol during pregnancy and the development of autism. They also advocated spacing out childhood vaccinations.

The two men's interest in the link ...

Attacks by Jewish settlers on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have broken UN records this year, reaching the highest level in almost 20 years.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has blamed a “minority” that “does not represent the large settler public”. Meanwhile, Israel’s security cabinet has just approved the recognition of 19 new settlements as the government continues its settlement expansion push. We’re joined ...

Tensions between the US and Venezuela are reaching a dangerous tipping point. The Trump administration has accused president Nicolas Maduro of leading a drug cartel and declared Maduro's government a “foreign terrorist organisation”. President Trump has also ordered a naval blockade of the country’s oil-sanctioned exports using what he calls “the largest ever armada assembled in the history of South America”.

In today’s episode, we...

The promise of pore-free, glassy, youthful-looking skin has made Korean beauty products a global phenomenon. Americans spent as much $1.7bn (£1.3bn) on K-beauty in 2024, according to industry estimates, and the US now imports more cosmetics from South Korea than any other country.

How did the South Korean government help K-beauty ride the soft power wave that has also brought us TV shows like KPop Demon Hunters, and pop groups such...

After the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, Australia tightened its gun laws, and has since been considered a world-leading example by gun control advocates of how to lessen the chances of mass shootings occurring.

However, the mass murder of at least 15 people in an antisemitic attack at Bondi beach on Sunday has again raised the issue of gun access, and Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese has said he is “ready to fight” to str...

President Trump says a Ukraine peace deal is ‘closer than ever’ following talks in Berlin with European officials and a delegation from Ukraine. But is it?

As the fourth anniversary of Russia's full scale invasion approaches, no peace deal can be agreed without Vladimir Putin’s support. Can he be persuaded to accept anything short of a Russian victory? We speak to the BBC’s Russia editor, Steve Rosenberg.

Producers: Valerio Esposito...

Australia is reeling after its deadliest mass shooting in decades, in which gunmen opened fire on Jewish people gathered for a Hanukkah event on Bondi Beach in Sydney. At least 16 people have been killed – among them a 10-year-old and a Holocaust survivor. The massacre has triggered a reckoning in Australia and beyond.

While some are asking how this horror could have happened, others believe an attack like this was grimly inevitable...

Fighting broke out last week on the Thai-Cambodian border, despite a US-brokered ceasefire in July. The conflict was one of the eight wars that President Trump claimed to have ended, so why did this peace deal unravel?

We speak to Jonathan Head, the BBC’s southeast Asia correspondent, from Surin on the Thai side of the border.

Producers: Xandra Ellin and Sam Chantarasak

Executive producer: Bridget Harney

Senior news editor: China Coll...

**This episode contains descriptions of abuse and violence**

In November, the Italian parliament voted unanimously to introduce the term “femicide” into the country’s legal code. The murder of a woman – on account of her gender – is now a distinct crime, punishable with a life sentence.

The United Nations reported that last year nearly 50,000 women and girls were killed by intimate partners or family members.

Italy is the latest count...

Europe is facing the prospect of ‘civilizational erasure’. That is the official view of the Trump administration, as put in a radical policy document that was released late last week.

The US government’s new National Security Strategy paints the most complete picture yet of who the administration sees as its allies and its adversaries, and it has left Europe’s leaders reeling.

Today, we speak to the BBC's State Department corresp...

This week, Syrians have been celebrating the first anniversary of the fall of the Assad regime and the end of almost 14 years of civil war. In the year since, the former jihadist turned leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, has been on an international charm offensive. But has life improved for ordinary Syrians back home? And has Sharaa proven himself to be the reformer the west wants him to be?

Today we’re joined from Damascus by the BBC’s int...

**This episode contains discussion of bullying and suicide**

Australian teens are bracing for a new law coming into effect this week that will ban social media accounts for anyone under the age of 16. The Government says the legislation is designed to protect the mental wellbeing of Australian children and teens – but it’s already proving controversial, not least among American tech companies and some politicians who see the ban as ...

After an Afghan national was charged with shooting two National Guard members in Washington DC, President Donald Trump called for sweeping changes in immigration policy and pledged to "permanently pause migration" from all "third world countries".

Afghan nationals, especially those who worked with the US mission in Afghanistan, may now find themselves in a particularly precarious position. Asma and Tristan discuss these rapid rec...

Fifa’s president, Gianni Infantino, is widely expected to award Donald Trump the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize on Friday, at the draw for the 2026 World Cup in Washington DC. The prize has led to scrutiny over Infantino’s close relationship with Trump, along with concerns that Trump might move matches from host cities and fears over visa delays or refusals for travelling fans and officials.

We speak to Dan Roan, the BBC’s sports edi...

When China began cracking down on the spiritual movement Falun Gong in the 1990s, its leader and some followers moved to the United States. From there, they started the Epoch Times, a free newsletter.

But in the past decade, the organisation has grown to become a conservative media empire – with a Pentagon press pass, a slick TV arm, and many millions of dollars in revenue. How did they do it? The story involves a mysterious spirit...

President Donald Trump has pardoned Juan Orlando Hernández, a former president of Honduras who was serving a 45-year sentence for drug trafficking and weapons offences.

It was only last year that Hernández was convicted in a New York courtroom of being part of a huge drug trafficking conspiracy, after being extradited to the US. Prosecutors said the operation flooded America with cocaine and turned Honduras into a “narco-state”. But...

Are we living through the slow death of reading - replaced by an addictive screen culture that fragments our attention and floods us with trivial or unreliable information? Writer and voracious reader James Marriott believes we are entering a post-literate age with profoundly negative consequences for education, culture and democracy itself. In today's episode, James traces how an 18th century ‘reading revolution’ shaped the modern...

Last June, Israel and the United States carried out coordinated strikes on nuclear and military sites across Iran in what became known as the 12-day war. The aim was clear: destroy Iran’s nuclear-enrichment facilities amid warnings that Tehran was dangerously close to developing a nuclear weapon. But conflicting reports in the immediate aftermath left the public uncertain about how effective the operation really was. Six mont...