The Inquiry

The United States, UK, Israel and now Pakistan all use drone strikes to kill. In September a general in the Pakistani army announced their first ever use of an armed drone. It was directed at a terrorist compound, he said, and killed three. Meanwhile the US is thought to have launched a secret drone campaign to kill so-called Islamic State fighters in Syria. Armed drones are the counter-terrorism...

Japan is a pacifist country - at least that is what its constitution says. The wording, introduced under the occupying forces after World War Two, seems unequivocal: “the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation”. But new laws championed by conservative prime minister Shinzo Abe introduce a broader interpretation of what the constitution does, and does not, permit. A...

Tens of thousands of people have marched in Buenos Aires and elsewhere in outrage at the astonishing frequency with which women are being killed in Argentina - the vast majority at the hands of their partners or former partners. Violence directed at women and girls is at the extreme end of the scale. But the protesters believe it grows out of the 'machista' culture - where men have to be macho, an...

The UN forecasts that the number of people living in Africa will double in the next 35 years. Nigeria, the fastest-growing nation, is expected to become the third largest country in the world by 2050. By the end of the century, almost 40% of the world’s population will live on this one continent. It raises questions about how countries – some of which are already facing big challenges – will cope...

In 2011, following a devastating tsunami, Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power station went into meltdown, leaking radiation. It was the most serious nuclear accident since Chernobyl. It appeared to send the nuclear power industry into retreat – and not just in Japan. Other nations had second thoughts too. Germany decided to phase out its nuclear reactors altogether. But now Japan has resumed nuclear p...

Tens of thousands of migrants continue to queue at the borders of the European Union in search of a better life. Their journeys are often hazardous and thousands have drowned in the Mediterranean trying to reach Italy or Greece. Attempts to share the burden among EU member states have been dogged by internal politics. And Europe’s actions so far have focussed on deterrence despite little evidence...

Robots are coming for your job. Blue-collar jobs in industries like manufacturing have been disappearing for years but now white-collar work is under threat too. Machines are already taking roles that used to be done by journalists, lawyers and even anaesthetists. One recent study calculated that 47% of total employment in the US is at risk of automation in the next 20 years. So what will happen t...

In June last year the world's attention became fixed on the progress of so-called Islamic State, or IS. They had just captured Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city. Since then a reported 20,000 fighters from all over the world have joined them. They have killed and enslaved thousands. They have captured towns, oil fields and dams. They control vast swathes of Iraq and Syria. IS are more brutal, sophi...

This July, it was reported that a woman from Washington State in the US had died of measles. It was the first measles death in the country in 12 years and comes after a huge spike in the number of cases of the disease. There is little doubt about what has caused the rise. The 'anti-vax' movement – activists who refuse vaccines believing them to be harmful to children – is vocal, vibrant and virule...

In 2009, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown declared “the beginning of the end” for off-shore tax havens. Since then, the EU, the G20, President Obama and others have lined up to criticise them. And yet they arre still with us. Tim Whewell asks why tax havens continue to exist, and whether tax havens are really to blame for tax avoidance in the first place. (Photo: Island in the Seychelles. Credit: Sh...

China's economy was up 150% until June. Then it fell by nearly a third. Now it has had the strongest two-day rise since the 2008 global crisis. China’s rollercoaster stock market has provoked panic in recent weeks; panic on the part of small investors, who looked on in horror as previous gains were wiped out, and panic – some would argue – on the part of the Chinese government, which did everythin...

Streaming has transformed the way millions listen to music. Whether signed up to Spotify, Apple Music or others, music lovers can access tens of millions of tracks instantly and for the monthly cost of one CD. But is this spectacular transformation good for music? Though streaming surely helps artists find new audiences, do those artists get rewarded fairly? And has having a ‘global jukebox’ at ou...

The global effort to prevent athletes using performance-enhancing drugs is vast and sophisticated. You might think, in this era of advanced testing, it would be almost impossible to cheat and get away with it. But is that really the case? Alberto Salazar, one of the world’s most successful coaches, has been accused of encouraging his athletes to dope. Salazar strongly denies the allegations. But t...

The global financial crisis reignited an old debate - is it better to cut spending and raise taxes in an economic downturn, or spend your way out of it? After a period of relative consensus up to 2010, some countries inclined more to austerity (cuts and tax rises), some against. In this edition of The Inquiry we examine whether we now have the evidence to settle this important economic argument. (...

Despite the tense and increasingly bitter negotiations between Greece and its European creditors - who the Greek government accuse of demanding intolerable austerity – most Greek people want their country to stay in the euro currency union. But there are some, including within the governing Syriza party, who think Greece might ultimately be better off going it alone, and returning to the drachma....

Fifteen years ago, manned space flight was still a dream for China. Now, they are looking to the moon. They have mastered space walking, they are building advanced scientific satellites in partnership with the European Space Agency, and they are constructing their own ‘heavenly palace’ – a space station to rival the ISS. But some, not least the United States, are concerned by possible military use...

Shocking images have brought the Rohingya to the world’s attention - boatloads of people drifting aimlessly on the Indian ocean, sustained by bottles of water thrown to them by visiting journalists. The Rohingya are Muslims from western Myanmar – or Burma – who live a life of poverty and exclusion. The government refuses even to recognise their ethnicity. Hoping for better lives in Malaysia, they...

Ask a scientist, and they will almost certainly tell you genetically modified food is safe to eat. Yet an awful lot of consumers disagree. Is their fear of GM food irrational? Earlier this year the Pew Foundation released a US poll which suggested 88% of scientists think GM food is generally safe to eat, while only 37% of the public agree. It is the issue on which American scientists and the gener...

Fifa has been described as a “totalitarian” set-up “beyond ridicule” with a leadership “incapable of reform or cultural change”. A corruption report is said to have contained “numerous materially incomplete and erroneous representations”. Many have argued that world football’s governing body is badly in need of reform. So, as Fifa prepares to elect its next president, our question this week: who c...

Recent high profile cases of unarmed black men dying at the hands of the US police have sparked outrage, protests and civil unrest in several American cities. The deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Walter Scott and Freddie Gray are – some claim – evidence of long-standing problems with police racism and excessive violence. But what do we really know about what’s happening? Our expert witnesses...

The violent riots on the streets of South Africa in recent weeks have seen foreigners killed, their shops looted and 5,000 left homeless. They are accused of taking jobs from locals in a country where high unemployment is a big concern - and an example of the gaping chasm that remains between rich and poor. So 21 years after Nelson Mandela pledged to liberate all South Africans from the continuing...

Last month Nato ran a military exercise involving over 400 people from 16 countries. It was the most advanced ‘live-fire’ cyber-defence exercise ever carried out. The point of it all? To help Nato countries prepare for an all-out cyber attack. The former US Secretary of Defence, Leon Panetta, has said “there's a strong likelihood that the next Pearl Harbor could very well be a cyber attack that cr...

In 2000 the world committed to reduce child mortality rates by 2015. At the time, there were on average 90 under-five deaths per 1,000 live births globally. Now there are 46. The UN says that means 17,000 fewer children are dying every day. Unicef has described the improvement as “one of the most significant achievements in human history”. But progress has been uneven. We look at one of the unexpe...

In a matter of months rebels have swept through Yemen, capturing the capital, forcing the president into exile and causing hundreds of casualties as a simmering conflict has exploded into war. But the causes are complex and confusing. The Houthi rebels are from Yemen’s north, and are now laying siege to the southern port of Aden. Are these geographical rivalries the key? The Houthi are Shia Muslim...

Later this month 190 nations will meet in New York to discuss the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), 45 years after it came into force. The Treaty prompted several aspiring nuclear-weapon nations to give up trying to get the bomb, but it also committed nuclear-weapon states like Russia and the US to pursue disarmament. Progress has been made. Overall stocks of nuclear warheads have dropped si...