If You're Listening

So Jeffery Epstein probably wasn’t a Mossad spy. But online conspiracies like this pop up closer to home too. Could Israeli intelligence have been involved in Australia’s most traumatic mass shooting? There are people who think so. In this bonus episode of If You’re Listening, Matt is joined by Conspiracy Nation author Cam Wilson, who breaks down the pervasive PA96 conspiracy about the Port Arthur massacre. 

Cam Wi...

The Jeffrey Epstein rabbit hole has opened into a cavernous rabbit abyss and it seems no one is safe. Conspiracy theorists and right-wing podcasters are following a particularly spicy lead: that Epstein was actually Israeli intelligence. 

It explains the curious circumstances around his death, the suppression of his so-called client list, and why Donald Trump seems keen to bury the story entirely. But where did the...

Forty years ago, a man named Mordecai Vanunu came very close to exposing Israel’s secret nuclear enrichment facility in a bible group in the heart of Sydney. But before he could speak to journalists, he was lured to Rome by a beguiling blonde named Cindy. In this bonus episode of If You’re Listening we take a closer look at “Cindy” the mysterious Mossad honeypot who abducted Vanunu and changed the course of his li...

It’s widely accepted that Israel has nuclear weapons. 

How many? Well, it’s impossible to know because to this day the Israeli government has never officially confirmed or denied that it possesses a nuclear arsenal at all, instead it maintains a policy of “strategic ambiguity”. 

In truly one of the most extraordinary stories we’ve told on this show - we get to the bottom of how Israel hides its nukes, how we found o...

With Iran still in the news, we thought we would revisit the man who created the regime that so many in the Israeli and American political establishments would love to topple: Ayatollah Khomeini. This is the man who came back from 16 years in exile to be the Supreme Leader of Iran’s fundamentalist Islamic regime and overthrew the 2500 year old monarchy. 

This episode was originally published on the 22nd February 20...

Before Iran was the Islamic theocracy it is today, it was a monarchy for two and a half thousand years. The last Shah or king of Iran was overthrown in 1979. 

In this episode of If You're Listening we hear about the Shah’s battle with cancer that resulted in a Shakespearean tragedy that brought about the end of the Iranian monarchy and shaped the Middle East conflict we see today.

This episode was originally publish...

The chaotic 12 days of the Israel-Iran war ended with the United States dropping bombs on Iran’s nuclear facilities, then quickly brokering a ceasefire. 

But there are still many questions about the conflict: Has Iran really been mere months away from building a bomb for the last fifteen years, as Israel claims? Did the US’s strikes bust all plans for an Iranian nuke? And what does an American bowling alley company...

Israel recently bombed Iran’s notorious Evin prison, a place that Dr Kylie Moore Gilbert came to know all too well. The political scientist and author was imprisoned in Iran for 804 days and eventually released in a prisoner swap in November 2020.

In this chat with Matt Bevan, Kylie talks about solitary confinement, Iranian cheetahs, how her first cellmate was a spy, and why the regime is cracking down on dissident...

For the last century, since the rise of mechanised and then nuclear warfare, defence budgets are designed to stop big existential attacks. Ships, planes, submarines.

But cheap, retail store level technology - drones - have changed the game in the conflicts involving Ukraine and Israel. There’s no real way to immunise against a drone swarm that’s been smuggled into your country and hidden in a truck. 

These covert at...

The United States has dropped some very large bombs on Iran, inserting itself into what we are currently calling the Israel-Iran War, despite Donald Trump saying just days earlier that he was going to spend two weeks thinking about it. 

The bombs they dropped managed to destroy or at least severely damage a nuclear facility buried 90 metres underground. Which kind of makes Matt’s studio basement bunker superfluous....

There is violence on the streets of America as anti-ICE protesters push back hard against the Trump Administration’s immigration policies. 

In the early months of the Trump presidency it seemed like everything was going his way but now that’s changing and fast as his executive orders are challenged in the courts. 

When it comes to stopping mass deportations Americans are learning that protests can actually work. The...

It’s been a manic week in global politics. Trump and Musk have officially broken up, Americans have taken to the streets to protest ICE deportations… oh and we’re seemingly on the brink of a nuclear war in the Middle East! 

To take stock of these rapidly deteriorating news stories, Matt Bevan talks to Dr Emma Shortis, Director of the Australia Institute’s International Security Affairs Program, author and host of t...

In news that will surprise no one, the big beautiful bromance between Donald Trump and Elon Musk has finally come to an end. 

Over the last week, there's been a dramatic shift in Trump's presidency - he's publicly fighting with his former First buddy, judges are overruling his executive orders and there are protests in the streets of LA. 

As we pass 100 days of the Trump administration, everything is changing fast a...

While investigating the history of fluoride, Matt Bevan stumbled upon a regional newspaper insert from the 1940s called Modern Weekly News Magazine. And let’s just say that the content was ... rather unique. 

In this bonus episode of If You’re Listening Matt swaps articles with supervising producer Kara Jensen-Mackinnon from the quirky pages of Modern Weekly News Magazine.

Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Liste...

Putting fluoride in drinking water has often been called one of the most successful public health measures in human history. But since the very beginning of fluoridation programs in the 1940s, it’s been plagued by misinformation and furious opposition.

Now with Robert F Kennedy Jr at the helm of the US Department of Health, the Trump Administration is leading the charge to get states to ban the use of fluoride in w...

A little trivia question for you... is Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi married?

He’s gotta be, right? World leaders do tend to be married, and someone like Modi probably is. But, picture him at a big rally does he have a spouse there with him? You can't can you?

Well, it turns out Narendra Modu is married and his carefully crafted image of a bachelor was up-ended when it emerged that he had a wife who had been k...

India and Pakistan have agreed to a temporary ceasefire, but tensions between the two nuclear-armed nations are still running high. There are factions in both governments that think a war might be a good thing for them politically. 

The old saying goes that most nations have an army, whereas Pakistan is a place where the army has a nation. So will nationalistic rhetoric from Pakistan’s military lead an inevitable e...

After a brief moment where two nuclear powers looked to be on the verge of war, India and Pakistan have agreed to a temporary ceasefire. But Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi says it’s not an end to hostilities, just a pause. 

The scary thing is - there are factions in both governments that think a war might be a good thing for them politically. So why is that and will it inevitably lead to a deadly conflict? 

Ove...

When two planes crashed into the World Trade Center towers on September 11 2001 Howard Lutnick lost 658 of his colleagues. It was a tragedy of unthinkable proportions which we covered in last week’s episode. But Howard Lutnick lost something else that day and Matt can’t stop thinking about it. 

In this bonus episode of If You’re Listening we take a look at the most famous sculptor since Michelangelo; Auguste Rodin,...