The Real Story

Over the past year thousands of journalists have lost their jobs as mass media news organisations struggle to make ends meet. Ad revenue is down, many publishers are struggling to gain subscribers, and social media has resulted in plummeting traffic to homepages. More than a third of people worldwide say they sometimes or often actively avoid the news, many citing their mental health and concerns that they can’t do anything about t...

A bonus episode from The Global Story podcast.

In a new BBC documentary, a single Ukrainian infantry company find themselves in a life or death battle to defend the eastern front against intense Russian attacks.

Jamie Roberts tells us how he managed to get such rare access and what the fate of these men tells us about the reality of the frontlines in Ukraine.

The Global Story brings you trusted insights from BBC journalists worldwide....

A bonus episode from The Global Story podcast.

Sam Bankman-Fried was the golden boy of cryptocurrency. He was dubbed the king and saviour of the industry. But this week he will be sentenced to possibly decades in prison for fraud and money laundering, and his firm, FTX, went bankrupt.

Joe Tidy, the BBC's cyber correspondent tells us about SBF - the man he interviewed before his trial. And Erin Delmore, our North America business corr...

A bonus episode from The Global Story podcast.

When Guyana discovered huge offshore oil reserves in 2015, it transformed the prospects of a country which had a been an economic and political backwater. But, as one of the countries most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, will drilling for oil be a windfall or a curse in the long run?

Stephen Sackur has just returned from Guyana for the BBC's HardTalk programme where he spok...

A bonus episode from The Global Story podcast.

On this episode, we’re covering two very different stories.

After the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack on a concert hall in Moscow, we’re revisiting a previous episode asking how much of a threat the group still pose.

Mina al-Lami from BBC Monitoring tells us that the groups fortunes fell in 2023, with them claiming far fewer attacks. And Josh Baker from The Sha...

The plane maker’s safety record is in the spotlight after a series of incidents. In January an unused door blew off a Boeing 737 Max 9 operated by Alaska Airlines shortly after take-off. An initial report from the US National Transportation Safety Board concluded that four bolts meant to attach the door securely to the aircraft had not been fitted. Prior to the incident, there had been other serious problems on the 737 Max producti...

The US House of Representatives has passed a landmark bill that could see TikTok effectively banned. It would give the social media giant's Chinese parent company, ByteDance, six months to sell its controlling stake or the app would face blocks in the US. Supporters of the bill say the app’s links with China make it a national security risk. Opponents argue that tens of millions of Americans rely on the platform and that the real p...

The Haitian government declared a 72-hour state of emergency on Sunday. It follows the storming at the weekend by gangs of two prisons, with some 3,700 inmates escaping. The gang leaders want the resignation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry, with one of them (Jimmy Cherizier, aka Barbecue) saying there will be civil war if Mr Henry does not go. Mr Henry had travelled to Kenya to discuss the deployment of a UN-backed security mission i...

At the Munich Security Conference in February a senior UN official described the war in Sudan as “not a forgotten crisis, but a wholly ignored crisis”. And yet the impact of 10 months of fighting is huge - nearly eight million people have had to leave their homes, more than in any other current conflict.

Just last week the UN pointed to multiple indiscriminate attacks by both the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Supp...

The population of the world has been rising for over 200 years but some time later this century it’s predicted to peak. Demographers don’t know exactly when that will happen but they do know that we are already experiencing a demographic transition. Fertility rates are falling world wide. Fertility in China and India is below replacement rate. In developed countries populations are ageing; since 2013, a quarter of Japan’s populati...

President Macky Sall of Senegal is facing mounting pressure after the decision to postpone the scheduled 25 February presidential election to December. The opposition says the move is a “constitutional coup” but the president says more time is needed to resolve a dispute over who is eligible to stand as a presidential candidate after several opposition contenders were barred. Last week, three people were killed and hundreds arreste...

Europe has been swept by a wave of protests by farmers, many of whom blame environmental policies for increasing their hardship. In Germany, farmers are angry about the phasing out of tax breaks on agricultural diesel. A policy aimed at reducing pesticide use was one of many grievances fuelling demonstrations in France, Belgium and the Netherlands - prompting the EU to backtrack on the policy. But farmers are worried about more tha...

China has tightened financial industry rules as it tries to halt a deepening sell-off in the world's second largest economy. Nearly $6tn has been wiped off Chinese and Hong Kong stocks over the past three years. Meanwhile a court in Hong Kong this week ordered the liquidation of debt-laden Chinese property giant Evergrande. Youth unemployment in China is thought to be around 20%. So, what’s the real state of China’s economy? Some a...

Artificial intelligence is increasingly impacting all of our lives. Proponents say the technology has the potential to cure diseases, reduce hunger and free up leisure time by improving productivity. But others worry it will destroy our privacy, undermine our democracies and increase inequality. So, how can we ensure AI delivers the maximum benefits while protecting our individual rights? The European Union is leading the way in at...

Taiwan’s voters have chosen pro-sovereignty candidate William Lai as their next president, a result which has angered China. It means Mr Lai’s party has secured an unprecedented third consecutive presidential term at a time when the Taiwanese people are debating how best to deal with Beijing. China has claimed sovereignty over Taiwan since the end of the civil war in 1949, when the defeated Nationalist government fled to the island...

On Monday voters in Iowa begin the nationwide process of deciding which candidates will be on the ballot in November’s US presidential election. Most expect it to once again be a competition between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Control of the House of Representatives, the Senate and various state governments will also be decided. So, how is this year’s election cycle likely to unfold, which issues will dominate, and how will this el...

2024 will be the world’s biggest election year ever. From the United States to the UK, Taiwan to India, South Africa to Mexico, it’s estimated countries representing nearly half the world’s population will head to the polls in some form of election this year. But how much faith do people around the world still have in democracy?

In South Africa this year’s election will be a defining one. 40 years since a post-Apartheid electorate v...

This week is crucial for the future of Ukraine. After promises of open-ended support, the US and the EU are now struggling to agree on new funding for the war effort. President Zelensky says Ukraine risks losing the war if new funding is not available.

So much so that President Zelensky is in Washington in an attempt to rescue a threatened US defence package to Kyiv worth billions of dollars. The aid has become embroiled in domestic...

The Paris climate agreement in 2015 aimed to limit global warming to 1.5C. But have politics and lobbying got in the way of urgently needed progress? Is it too late for some nations? There has been much scepticism among delegates at COP28 as to whether the hosts are honest brokers in this process and if the money pledged by the wealthiest nations is enough to mitigate this crisis.

Shaun Ley is joined by:

Rachel Kyte served as Speci...