What in the World

Rage bait is social media content that's designed to elicit anger and frustration. Those feelings can encourage people to engage with the content, often by replying. It’s a process that helps content creators earn a lot of money. BBC reporter Megan Lawton discusses the reasons that social media users engage with this type of content and offers tips to identify it. And BBC tech reporter Tom Gerken...

The world’s most expensive banana has been sold at an auction for more than $6 million. It’s Maurizio Cattelan's 2019 work Comedian and it’s literally just a banana duct-taped to a wall. The new owner bought the right to display the installation along with a guide on how to replace the fruit (it doesn’t stay fresh for long!). But what makes it art? And why would someone eat a multi-million dollar...

Intra-continental travel is huge, and borderless agreements between countries make trips easier. For instance, Europe has the Schengen Zone and South East Asia has ASEAN. But for Africa, it’s still a work in progress. The UN tourism boss Natalya Bayona says she wants to make borderless travel for tourism in Africa a reality within ten years. Daniel Dadzie, from the BBC Focus on Africa podcast, exp...

There has been intense fighting between Israel and Hezbollah for over a year. More than 3,500 people have been killed in Lebanon, over a million people displaced, and many homes destroyed by Israeli airstrikes. Israel says 60,000 of its citizens will now be able to go back to their communities along its northern border, safe from Hezbollah rocket fire from Hezbollah. In this episode, we speak to C...

The town of Van Vieng in Laos is a popular stop for backpackers traveling through Southeast Asia. But after six tourists died earlier this month following suspected methanol poisoning, many tourists are re-thinking their itineraries and how they drink. We hear from some of them. Also: William from the What in the World team tells us about the victims in Laos and looks at alcohol poisoning around t...

The annual United Nations climate change conference ended on Sunday but not everybody was happy. This year, the main focus was on getting richer countries, who have contributed more to climate change, to pay poorer, developing countries so that they can better deal with the impacts of climate change. COP29 was held in Baku, Azerbaijan, and the talks were meant to end on Friday. The negotiations ra...

According to a major government survey, more than 70% of young people in Malaysia are in debt. Officials say shopping addiction is the number one reason why. Social media feeds that addiction by promoting “flex culture” — the desire to flash your wealth in person and online. Leeloo Larcombe, a fashion and lifestyle influencer, tells us about Malaysia’s shopping culture and her complicated relation...

Thailand has become the first country in South East Asia to legalise same-sex marriage. The new law means that LGBTQ+ couples will have the same legal rights as other couples when it comes to adoption, inheritance and medical decisions. It’s taken activists years of campaigning to get to this point, and in September 2024 Thailand's king signed it into law. It will come into force in January 2025....

A video of an Iranian student in her underwear at a university campus in Tehran has gone global. It shows Ahoo Daryaei walking around grey concrete buildings in a purple bra and knickers before being forcibly detained. Authorities were quick to claim that she was suffering from poor mental health, but many have seen it as an act of defiance against the hijab. Faranak Amidi, a BBC journalist and pr...

You might have seen the viral video of 22-year-old MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke doing the haka in the middle of New Zealand’s parliament last Thursday. It was a protest aimed at disrupting the debate in parliament about a bill which, if it became law (which is unlikely), would transform the way the indigenous Māori population are treated by changing the nation’s 184-year-old treaty. Then, on Tuesd...

Elon Musk — the world’s richest man — has built several companies, including PayPal, Tesla, and SpaceX. He’s also built a close relationship with Donald Trump, president-elect of the United States. America’s next leader has appointed Musk to run the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, which is meant to slash government waste. Nathalie Jimenez, a BBC reporter in New York, explains ho...

Can you imagine sitting all of the most important exams of your life on one day? That’s the reality for Korean students, whose university-entrance exam, the Suneung, sees students sit an eight-hour marathon of exams, all on one day. Juna Moon, our reporter in Seoul, tells us why a record number of students are resitting the brutal exam this year. Plus Koh Ewe, a BBC journalist in Singapore, tells...

CBD products are everywhere. You can get the cannabis extract in oils, vapes, skincare products, even gummy bears, coffee and fizzy drinks. Videos recommending it are all over TikTok, and it’s so popular Kim Kardashian even had a CBD-themed baby shower. Fans and influencers say it can help improve your mood, help you sleep, get rid of anxiety and chronic pain. But are these claims true? BBC report...

Disputes over the South China Sea are back in the news, with China and the Philippines both marking out areas they say are theirs. China has previously been accused of hitting Philippine boats with water cannon and both sides say the other have rammed boats into each other. Benny Lu from the BBC’s Chinese service in Hong Kong takes us through the background of it all and explains how the US’s rela...

Hundreds of sex tapes featuring Baltazar Ebang Engonga, the nephew of Equatorial Guinea’s president, have flooded social media. Many of the women seen in the tapes are the wives and relatives of people close to the centre of power. The scandal has shone an unflattering spotlight on the central African country, which is sometimes called “The North Korea of Africa”. Its President Teodoro Obiang Ngue...

The World Health Organisation now officially recognises gaming disorder as a mental health condition - when someone’s gaming behaviour becomes so severe that it takes precedence over other interests. Symptoms include losing control over the amount of time playing, prioritising gaming over other interests and responsibilities and continuing to game despite negative consequences. But how do you know...

According to the United Nations, Africa’s urban population is projected to triple by 2050, with over 60% of 2.5 billion people living in cities. This rapid urbanisation and population growth is driving demand for properties across the continent. Nigerian and Ghanaian cities are some of the fastest-growing globally, but with inflation and the rising cost of living, prices are going up and people ar...

$20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. That’s how much a Russian court has fined Google for restricting Russian state media channels on YouTube. That’s two undecillion roubles - and far greater than the world’s total GDP, which is estimated by the International Monetary Fund to be $110 trillion. Jen Monaghan, from BBC Monitoring, talks us through why Google has been hit with such a massi...

Donald Trump will return to the White House in January 2025, after defeating Democrat rival Kamala Harris in the 2024 U.S. presidential elections. The win comes just four years after he lost re-election to Joe Biden — and just weeks before his sentencing in his New York criminal trial. We explain the factors behind his historic win and hear from political analysts about how issues like the economy...

Floods have swept through Valencia on Spain’s eastern coast, causing death and destruction in their wake. It’s the worst flooding in Europe this century. More than 200 people have died and many are still missing - it is the country’s deadliest natural disaster in recent memory. There is widespread anger over the government’s response, and when Spain’s king and queen visited the town of Paiporta, t...

COP 16 — the United Nations Biodiversity Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity — recently concluded in Colombia. One of the major issues was "biopiracy". That’s when companies take out patents to own the rights to living organisms, like plants — despite the fact many local and indigenous communities may have been using these plants and other biological material for...

Gaming is growing in Africa. As the continent’s booming youthful population get better access to smart phones and internet connectivity improves, so does its gaming scene. Esports events are gaining traction too, with South Africa, Kenya, Morocco and Nigeria all hosting large tournaments showcasing Africa’s best gaming talent. We chat to Brian Khisa, a BBC reporter based in Nairobi, about why the...

The practice of sending money to family in other countries - known as remittances - is widespread. The World Bank estimates that over $650 billion was sent to low- and middle-income countries in 2023. When it comes to the flow of money from the U.S. to African nations, some people use the term ”black tax.” As costs are rising around the world, some people are saying it's becoming harder to afford...

Chris Brown is performing in South Africa for the first time since 2015 this December. Tickets for his concerts sold out Johannesburg's FNB Stadium in just a few hours. But not everyone is happy about it. Campaigners have highlighted that the concert is scheduled just days after the global commemoration of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence. So, a petition has been started to bl...

Two years after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, abortion remains a central issue in U.S. politics. The backlash from the ruling that allows states to ban abortion shook up the 2022 midterms, and since then, voters have consistently backed abortion rights in ballot measures—even in traditionally conservative states like Ohio, Kentucky, and Kansas. Now, with Election Day approaching, 10 sta...