If You're Listening

Presidents have always left their mark on the White House. Harry Truman rebuilt it from the inside out. John F. Kennedy restored its elegance. Jimmy Carter installed solar panels… then Ronald Reagan removed them. By that standard, Donald Trump's plan to build a grand ballroom isn't all that unusual. In fact, it's something he's talked about for years. The real story isn't the renovation; it's the...

In last Thursday's episode, we talked about one of the most sophisticated intelligence operations in recent history, when Israel planted bombs in thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah. But it wasn't the first time something like this has happened. Today, Matt and Kara trace the long history of people accidentally spying on themselves: from the CIA's best-selling encryption machi...

Israel's campaign against Hezbollah began with one of the boldest intelligence operations in recent memory. The pager attacks devastated the group's leadership, and Benjamin Netanyahu declared Hezbollah had been crushed. But eliminating a leader is one thing, defeating an ideology is another. In southern Lebanon, Hezbollah is woven into daily life. After decades of conflict and a weak central gove...

Last Thursday's episode touched on the relatively short-lived, Israel-backed microstate of Free Lebanon. For Matt, that's all the excuse he needs to tell the story of his favourite ever micronation: the Principality of Sealand. Especially because, when he mentioned Sealand in an episode last year, so many of you wrote in to say you shared his enthusiasm. So here we finally are. Today, Matt is tell...

Donald Trump wants a historic deal with Iran. The problem is that some of the biggest obstacles aren't in Tehran or Washington. They're on the border between Israel and Lebanon.  In this two-part special, we trace the conflict that keeps dragging the region back into crisis. From Israel's invasion of Lebanon and the creation of a security zone in the south, to the rise of Hezbollah and years of cr...

The construction of Trump's new White House ballroom would make for maybe the best episode of Grand Designs ever made. The budget has blown out, a historic wing of the house has been demolished, and it's putting a strain on President Trump and Melania's relationship. Sadly, Kevin McCloud wasn't available for this episode. Instead, Matt is talking to White House reporter for the Washington Post, Da...

Before it was a billion-dollar sporting empire, the UFC was fighting for survival. Regulators wanted it banned, broadcasters kept their distance.  The company was down for the count. Then Donald Trump stepped in. When few venues would host the sport, he opened the doors of the Trump Taj Mahal, giving the sport a much-needed lifeline and UFC President Dana White never forgot it. Decades later, the...

While researching our series on Taiwan, we stumbled across one of the strangest stories ever filed for ABC's Foreign Correspondent. In 2005, while covering the aftermath of Taiwan's disputed presidential election, reporter Eric Campbell investigated a bizarre practice that its followers claim dates back centuries. In this episode, Matt and Eric revisit that remarkable report and reflect on Eric's...

For decades, Beijing has pursued a simple strategy towards Taiwan: the carrot and the stick. The stick comes in the form of military drills, missile launches, and increasingly aggressive displays of force designed to remind Taiwan of China's power. The carrot is soft diplomacy: business opportunities, cultural exchanges, economic integration, and promises of prosperity under closer ties with the m...

Modern China has used ceremonial banquets to resolve diplomatic disputes for decades - but there's often a message hidden within. ABC reporter Bang Xiao gives Matt the meaning behind the meal.  Follow If You're Listening on the  ABC Listen app . Check out our series on YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq

A fistfight erupts in Taiwan's parliament. Punches fly as two rivals find themselves at the centre of the chaos. On one side is Chen Shui-bian, a member of Taiwan’s progressive DPP who became Taiwan's first president from outside the long-ruling KMT. On the other is Han Kuo-yu, a KMT populist. But this isn't just another political brawl.  Their careers mirror Taiwan's transformation from authorita...

To this day, international recognition of Taiwan is a fraught issue - with only a handful of countries affirming their claim of statehood.  Today, Matt's producer Adair tells him the strange saga of Taiwan's Olympic ambitions, including the tale of a Taiwanese man once called the greatest athlete in the world, and the potential plot to take him down. Follow If You're Listening on the  ABC Listen a...

For decades, Taiwan has existed in political limbo: claimed by China, governed separately, and shaped by a history far more complicated than most people realise. After the Second World War, Taiwan was handed back from Japan to China just as the mainland descended into civil war. Mao Zedong’s Communists eventually defeated Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists, who fled to Taiwan and rebuilt the Republic...

A team of tech billionaires and venture capitalists have proposed a city that promises to revive the American Dream. But secret landgrabs, legal disputes, and good old reliable NIMBYism stands in their way. Follow If You're Listening on the  ABC Listen app . Check out our series on YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq

The world watched Donald Trump and Xi Jinping sit across from each other in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing last week. Two leaders with radically different foreign policy styles but the same conviction: that the future belongs to the bold. Trump’s approach to foreign policy has looked like a blitz attack, complete with tariffs, airstrikes and threatening to close strategic chokepoints to f...

Palantir has hundreds of millions of dollars worth of contracts with Australian federal and state governments. The ABC's national AI reporter Cam Wilson joins Matt to share the details. Follow If You're Listening on the  ABC Listen app . Check out our series on YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq

The shadowy U.S. tech company Palantir has had a meteoric rise from complete obscurity to transforming the nature of surveillance forever. Pivotal to that rise is its unorthodox CEO, the philosophising tech-entrepreneur Alex Karp.  As Palantir integrates itself into systems in every facet of life, from Australian supermarkets to the controversial U.S. ICE raids, Alex Karp provides justifications a...

The CIA and the FBI famously weren't talking to each other in the lead-up to 9/11. This is the story of why.  Supervising producer Kara Jensen-Mackinnon tells Matt about a decades-long secret FBI operation underneath the streets of Washington which ended in one of the most extraordinary betrayals in American intelligence history. Listen to Matt on No One Saw it Coming on the ABC Listen App Follow...

In the aftermath of 9/11, the problem wasn't just intelligence failure; it was information stuck in silos. The FBI and CIA had pieces of the puzzle, but no shared picture. Enter Palantir: a company built on the premise that data, if stitched together properly, could surface threats before they metastasise. Co-founded by Peter Thiel and Alex Karp, Palantir's early pitch was deceptively simple: give...

From engineers with god complexes to elite athletes prone to being struck by lightning, Matt’s producers Pat and Adair bring the strangest stories that haven’t made it into a story of If You’re Listening. You can listen to Matt Bevan's episode of Conversations here Follow If You're Listening on the  ABC Listen app . Check out our series on YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGH...

For decades now, the tiny gas-rich nation of Qatar has been surviving off the back of its international diplomacy.  But now old alliances are falling apart and diplomatic norms are being crushed - is the law of the jungle the only law left? Listen to Matt on Conversations on the ABC Listen app Follow If You're Listening on the  ABC Listen app . Check out our series on YouTube:  https://www.youtube...

In 2003, fire trucks, ambulances and hazmat crews descend on Merewether High School in Newcastle after reports of a radioactive incident. No one is speaking to the media — except a 14-year-old student who’s just been given a mobile phone. Matt Bevan is live on the scene. Recorded live at Newcastle Writers Festival, Matt revisits a mystery from his past: the bizarre series of events that led to his...

In the midst of bluffs, empty threats and broken promises, Trump has struggled to find any leverage over the Iranian regime he has declared war on, so why is he so confident he can make a better deal than Obama did back in 2015? Follow If You're Listening on the  ABC Listen app . Check out our series on YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq

Until now, Australia has been relying on oil that passed through the Strait of Hormuz before the war began. But the last tankers to leave the Persian Gulf before the conflict are set to arrive in Australia this week.  It’s not just the domestic situation that is making hair stand on end. The entire global energy market also seems to be losing its mind.  To try and make sense of it all, Matt has en...

When the Strait of Hormuz closed, global gas prices doubled seemingly overnight. As one of the world’s biggest gas exporters, the spike should have meant a big payday for Australia.  Unfortunately, it hasn’t played out like that because Australia has a habit of locking in energy deals that look increasingly out of step with reality. Case in point: our long-term gas agreements with Japan. In an ext...