The Inquiry

In 2017 the black flag of the Islamic State group flew in the southern Philippines as a mixture of local and foreign fighters attacked the Islamic City of Marawi. While the government did eventually regain control, it took five months to break the siege and many terrorist leaders escaped during the fighting. It's led to fears that the extremist violence could spread. In this Inquiry we investigate...

In 1994 a United Nations conference, backed by 173 countries, announced that ‘female genital mutilation’ was a “violation of basic rights and a major lifelong risk to women’s health”. Agreeing it should end, international agencies and charities quickly swung into action, and over the next two decades millions were spent on campaigns to eradicate the practise around the world. Today though, prickin...

Making sense of the digital currency and the ideology of its founders, fans and future. In 2010 a developer spent 10,000 bitcoin to buy two pizzas. Seven and a half years later that was the equivalent of over $80m. Bitcoin has been exploding in value throughout 2017 as more and more people buy into the idea of a digital currency. Traditional financial institutions have even begun to get involved....

What next for North Korea? Kim Jong-un's nuclear ambitions and their global repercussions are explored in this special, extended edition of the programme. After a year of repeated weapons testing by the secretive regime that’s sparked a war of words with the United States, Ruth Alexander brings together six expert witnesses to dive deep into the detail of what is one of the biggest geopolitical ch...

Governing moon miners, asteroid hunters and space junk sounds pretty tricky, but we better get our act together. This year the majority of space launches included commercial enterprises. Space is no longer just the playground of governments but companies; companies that want to mine the moon for water that they could sell as rocket fuel, companies that want to mine the moon for helium -3 which cou...

There is a place on the internet where almost two billion of us regularly go – many of us, every day. Facebook: the social network which Mark Zuckerberg started in his university dorm room and which has grown, in a little over a decade, into one of the most valuable companies in the world. But what does Facebook’s lines of computer code do with the data we give it – and what could it do in the fut...

Forty-two Americans die every day from an overdose involving painkilling prescription opioids. President Donald Trump recently declared the US opioid epidemic a national public health emergency. Yet in the world’s poorest countries, cancer patients and people recovering from major surgery often get no effective pain relief at all. Why is access to prescription painkillers so unequal? And is the sh...

Missiles, fighter jets and mines waiting on the sea bed - war games in the gulf. Tension between Iran and Saudi Arabia is at an unprecedented level since a missile was intercepted over Saudi Arabia’s capital city. The Saudi Crown Prince blames Iran and says the attack may be considered an act of war. This is what would happen if they did go to war. (Photo: An Iranian missile is test-launched durin...

The world’s most profitable company is accused of aggressively dodging tax. Leaked documents in the Paradise Papers show Apple moved hundreds of billions of dollars in untaxed foreign profits to Jersey, where foreign companies pay no corporation tax. Yet Apple says it pays “every dollar it owes in every country around the world”. Confused? Not for long. (Customers wait in front of the giant Apple...

He’s pushed through reforms but some fear there is a darker desire driving the ruler. In one night, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman arrested over a dozen Princes and government ministers on corruption charges. To turn on his own royal family, he must be serious. But is corruption the Crown Prince’s real target or is this a power grab? There are also fears that the aggressive stance he has taken w...

Academic research stands accused of turning a blind eye to dodgy data, failing to reconcile contradictory findings and valuing money over knowledge. We examine the criticisms, which go the very heart of our pursuit of knowledge. (Photo: Scientist working in a research laboratory. Credit: Shutterstock)

The growth and reach of a group labelled a ‘terror force’ by President Trump. On 13 October President Trump announced new sanctions against Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp for supporting terrorism. But what is the Revolutionary Guard and what is its role in Iran and the Middle East? The group started as an army to protect the values of the Iranian revolution of 1979, but their role in figh...

Why internal conflicts end and what it might mean for Syria. The war in Syria is in its seventh year and there are few signs that an end is in sight. Yet over the years, other seemingly intractable civil conflicts have, eventually, been resolved. So, how did they do it and what lessons are there that might help Syria? (A Kurdish Syrian woman walks with her child past the ruins of the town of Koban...

The head of the Roman Catholic Church has been accused of aiding the spread of heresy. A petition criticising the ambiguity of Pope Francis' statements on the treatment of people who have divorced and remarried is the latest twist in a fierce debate which is dividing Roman Catholics. The argument centres on whether divorcees on their second marriages should be able to receive Holy Communion, a cer...

From driverless cars to "carebots", machines are entering the realm of right and wrong. Should an autonomous vehicle prioritise the lives of its passengers over pedestrians? Should a robot caring for an elderly woman respect her right to life ahead of her right to make her own decisions? And who gets to decide? The challenges facing artificial intelligence are not just technical, but moral - and r...

We all do it: ask a search engine things we wouldn’t dare ask a friend, post our lives on social media, hit the ‘agree’ button on privacy conditions we never read. This is life in our online age. To get our favourite apps and services for free, we provide companies with the intimate details of our lives. Businesses we’ve heard of, and many we haven’t, make money off this data in ways we may not fu...

The list of nations legislating to ban the sale of petrol and diesel cars is growing. But these restrictions won’t come into effect for decades. Air pollution contributes to thousands of early deaths each year and the scandal known as Dieselgate, when vehicle manufacturers admitted tampering with emissions tests, made us more aware of the polluting power of the diesel engine. Automotive technology...

North Korea continues to rattle the world with its rapidly advancing weapons programme. Diplomacy with this Hermit Kingdom is broken and UN sanctions have little effect curtailing the nuclear ambitions of the country’s enigmatic leader Kim Jong–Un. As its closest neighbour and biggest ally, can China solve the growing threat - with whatever options remain? (image: Chinese/N.Korean sign beside the...

Do we have the power to avoid the natural forces of intense rainfall? With rising sea levels and the threat of climate change, the risk of death due to floods seems an insurmountable challenge. But there are some surprising facts in the figures on flood deaths. In developed countries like the US, more men die in floods than women and it is 30% of white men who are of particular concern. We hear fr...

Cemeteries around the world are fast running out of space. As more and more people choose to live in cities, some can't even cope with the ashes left after cremation. Deep questions about our communities, cultures and mortality emerge as The Inquiry asks: what can we do with our dead? The programme script says that "only the very wealthiest can afford to rest in the ground in Hong Kong and Singapo...

North America’s most notorious racist group, the Ku Klux Klan fought the end of slavery in the 19th century, opposed civil rights in the 20th century and now forms part of a new extreme-right wing movement protesting openly, on America’s streets. Presented by James Fletcher and produced by Kate Lamble, The Inquiry asks four expert witnesses to answer this pressing question; how has the KKK managed...

Video games are a huge industry, bigger than Hollywood, and billions of people around the world play them for fun. But new economic research in the US suggests that young men are dropping out of work to play games more. This is both because some jobs are becoming harder to find and less rewarding, and because video games are becoming more and more attractive. The gamers say they are happy, but the...

Smears, bots and bags of cash - we reveal some of the tricks used for fiddling elections around the world. German Chancellor Angela Merkel's security chiefs say Russian intelligence is actively trying to influence next month's German elections. Meanwhile, from the US to the Netherlands, countries are becoming increasingly wary of election interference. So how do you fix someone else’s election? He...

A story of crime and often no punishment. South Africa's notoriously violent record has been getting worse. The number of murders and violent crimes is rising as public confidence in the police falls. Officers themselves have been linked to a series of high-profile cases, including spectacular heists at the country's main international airport. South Africa's police minister has called for "a firm...

You might think simple rules decide the creation of nation states. You'd be wrong. There are plenty of people out there who want their own state - like in Iraqi Kurdistan and Catalonia, which both have independence referendums coming up. Yet the national governments in Baghdad and Madrid say the votes - whatever their outcome - won't result in new countries. So how do you start a new country? Maki...