What in the World

India’s caste system, one of the world’s oldest social hierarchies, has shaped lives for centuries, granting privileges to some while oppressing others. Although caste based discrimination was banned in 1948, its influence hasn’t gone away and is now spilling into our social media feeds, with some young women asserting pride in their caste identities. We’re joined by correspondents from Delhi, Uma...

The death of One Direction star Liam Payne has shocked the world, and there’s been a huge outpouring of grief. Many details about the British singer's death still remain unclear, but information from emergency services and other authorities has started to build a picture of the events. We know that he was in Buenos Aires, in Argentina, and died after falling from a hotel balcony. Liam rose to fame...

We’re bringing you an extra episode of What in the World. Israeli troops have killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in Gaza. He is described as the mastermind of the 7th October 2023 attacks and Israel’s most wanted man. We explain who Yahya Sinwar was and how he was killed and what the Israelis have said about him. Shaina Oppenheimer from BBC Monitoring goes through some of the reaction to his death,...

Tensions between Israel and the United Nations over its peacekeeping operations in southern Lebanon have escalated in recent weeks. UN peacekeepers say Israeli forces fired at one of their positions and that tanks forced entry into another of its compounds, injuring 15 peacekeepers. Israel says that Unifil (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) has failed to prevent Hezbollah establishing itsel...

It’s less than three weeks until the US election where voters will decide who they want their next president to be: either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump. Overall, voters under 35 will make up about a third of the electorate, so the youth vote is an important one. But which issues matter most to them? BBC reporter Nathalie Jimenez in New York explains why the economy is at the front of everyone’s m...

On Monday after Hurricane Milton forced a delayed launch, a spacecraft that will hunt for signs of alien life on one of Jupiter’s icy moons blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Europa Clipper will now travel 1.8 billion miles to reach Europa, a deeply mysterious ice moon orbiting Jupiter. It won’t arrive until 2030 but what it finds could change what we know about life in our solar system. BB...

For decades, Ghana has been Africa's leading producer of gold. Most of its mining takes place legally. But small-scale, illegal gold mining — known locally as “galamsey” — has become a major problem. Toxic chemicals from the process are polluting Ghana’s water - 60% of its waterways are now contaminated. But as the country’s economy struggles, many involved in the practice say they lack an alterna...

2024 is a huge year for elections, with more than 60 countries holding national elections and over half the world’s population voting. With each election it can seem like opinion polls dominate the coverage but how are these polls carried out? We speak to pollster and data analyst David Byler from the American non-partisan polling company Noble Predictive Insights about how it all works. We also h...

HPV (human papillomavirus) is a sexually transmitted disease that can cause genital warts but often doesn’t have any symptoms. It’s the leading cause of cervical cancer. The HPV vaccine is available for teenage girls in over 125 countries, but only one in eight girls have had it. Dorcas Wangira, the BBC’s Africa Health correspondent joins us to discuss the HPV vaccine and how some countries have u...

In September, Rwanda detected its first ever outbreak of the highly infectious Marburg virus. Since then there have been more than forty confirmed cases and at least twelve people have died. Its health ministry has received 700 doses of an experimental drug supplied by the US-based Sabin Vaccine Institute, but we don’t yet know if it’ll be effective. BBC’s Africa Health reporter Makuochi Okafor, e...

This week, the BBC’s Green Sport Awards celebrated athletes from around the world who are using their sporting profile to make change towards a more sustainable future. We hear from BBC Sport journalist Nicola Pearson who tells us about the awards and who won. We also speak to Maddy Orr, an author and assistant professor at Toronto University in Canada, who specialises in the connection between sp...

One year ago, Palestinian militant group Hamas launched an cross-border attack on Israel. It was the deadliest day in Israel’s history: Around 1,200 people were killed, and another 250 people were taken as hostages. Israel began a massive campaign of air strikes on Gaza, which has killed 41,000 people according to the Hamas-run health ministry. Tensions have escalated across this region, with Isra...

Moo Deng, a two-month-old baby pygmy hippo, is Thailand’s unexpected new it girl. She’s now a viral sensation and is attracting huge queues at Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Chonburi Province and even has her own 24-hour livestream. The zoo says visitor numbers have doubled since her birth in July, boosting revenue that can be used for animal conservation efforts. But Moo Deng’s fame comes at a price: vid...

On Tuesday night, Iran fired 180 ballistic missiles at Israel. The Iranian military said it was in response to Israel’s assassinations of the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, both whom had links to Iran. What’s behind this long standing conflict between Iran and Israel? Who is in charge there? And what do Iranian people think about their leader...

You’ve probably seen people drinking matcha everywhere lately. It really seems to be a case of matcha this, matcha that. But does all the hype match what’s actually in your mug? Is it that healthy? And does this boom impact Japan at all? BBC reporter Megan Lawton tells us why she started looking into this matcha trend and we hear some of her interview with Max Ando, a Japanese model who set up his...

According to the International Labour Organisation around 1 in 150 people globally, are trapped in modern slavery. While some may think of slavery as a faraway evil from our past, a recent BBC investigation discovered a gang operating in the UK that forced people to live in an unheated attic and work up to 100 hours a week at a McDonald’s. As global crises like COVID-19, conflict, and climate chan...

On Friday, Israeli fighter jets dropped dozens of bombs on Lebanon’s capital Beirut, killing Hezbollah’s long-time leader, Hassan Nasrallah. Other key figures in the militant group have also been killed in recent weeks. Officials in Lebanon say more than 1,000 people have been killed there in the past two weeks and a million could now be displaced Hamas says the leader of its Lebanese group has al...

More than 2,700 stars are embedded into the pavement on the Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street, in Los Angeles in the US. Marilyn Monroe, Zac Efron, Scarlett Johansson, Ludacris and (just very recently) Batman are all part of the Walk of Fame. Thousands of tourists visit it daily, but there have been questions about who is and isn’t included and if this star-studded road is diverse enough. BBC re...

An indigenous red-feather cloak was recently returned to Brazil from a museum in Denmark - where it had been on display for hundreds of years. There are other examples of historic and precious artefacts being returned to their countries of origin. And this is leading to a growing pressure to return more, like the Hoa Hakananai'a, originally taken from Rapa Nui (Easter Island). The BBC’s Zeinab Dab...

Twenty-four-year-old Yu Hyuk is a North Korean defector who is about to make his debut as an idol in 1VERSE, the first K-pop band to include North Korean members. Before defecting to South Korea at the age of 13, Hyuk was so poor that he had to beg on the streets to survive. He initially had a hard time adjusting to the new environment but eventually found solace in music and song-writing. Can mus...

Anura Kumara Dissanayaka has just been elected as president in Sri Lanka’s first election since its economy collapsed in 2022. The National People's Power, the coalition alliance he ran for, drew support by promising to stamp out corruption and improve living conditions. But he faces the challenge of trying to sort out the country’s $92 billion debt. We speak to the BBC’s South East Asia Regional...

Time capsules preserve artefacts and memories so that people in the future can learn about a particular time in the past. Now scientists at the University of Southampton in the U.K. have come up with an innovative memento: a “memory crystal” that fits in your hand and contains the entire human genome. It’s essentially a manual that defines what makes us human. How could future generations use the...

Two years ago, rapper and music mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs threw a lavish 53rd birthday party at his $61m mansion in Beverly Hills. A host of stars lined up to toast his career with a guest list that included Jay-Z, Travis Scott, Mary J Blige, Kehlani, Tinashe, Chris Brown and Machine Gun Kelly. The party coincided with his 30th year in the music industry - three decades in which he formed his own e...

This week thousands of pagers and walkie talkies exploded all at once in Lebanon. Dozens were killed and thousands injured. These gadgets were used to communicate by members of Hezbollah, a designated terrorist group in Lebanon. Israel is widely believed to be behind these attacks, but Israel has not confirmed or denied its involvement. There are fears this could make the ongoing conflict in the M...

Sex education is a hot topic around the world. In Hong Kong, the Education Bureau has released teaching materials that suggest teenagers who want to have sex with each other should “go out to play badminton together” instead. The materials also encourage students to “resist” pornography and exercise self-control. That’s opened a discussion about sex education and whether officials understand the n...