What in the World

Shaikh Mohammad Sarfaraz, a young Indian man from Kolkata, thought he’d landed a great job in another country; the pay was good and he believed he’d get a passport after just a few months’ work. He was told he was going to be a helper for the Russian military, working as a security guard or in the kitchens. But once he got there he found out he wasn’t going to be a helper, he was going to be a sol...

Singeli is a style of electronic dance music that developed in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in the mid-2000s. The genre fuses incredibly rapid beats, with MCing and more traditional Tanzanian music. It started in underground parties but is now making waves globally. It’s played at Uganda’s Nyege Nyege festival, as well as in Boiler Room sets. Popular artists include Jay Mitta, Abbas Jazza and Sisso. G...

There are more than 7000 languages spoken around the world. However, nearly 40 percent of them are considered endangered and are at risk of dying out completely. It’s estimated that in the next one hundred years, at least half of the languages spoken today won’t be around anymore. To find out why and whether anything can be done to save them, we spoke to Stephanie Witkowski, the head of ‘7000 Lang...

Darryl George, an 18-year-old student, has been in in-school suspension since August for refusing to cut his dreadlocks. They violate his school’s dress code. His lives in the U.S. state of Texas which had just passed the Crown Act, a law designed to prohibit race-based hair discrimination. A judge has ruled that this does not apply in Darryl’s case. Brandon Drenon, a BBC journalist based in Washi...

American company Intuitive Machines has successfully landed its Odysseus robot near the lunar south pole. The US space agency Nasa had purchased room on it for six scientific instruments. It’s also carrying a box containing 125 small stainless steel balls or mini moons by the American artist Jeff Koons to be left there. There’s now hundreds of tonnes of human objects on the Moon - from old space b...

Farmers in India are protesting in the country once again, wanting assured prices for their crops. There have already been four rounds of talks with the government which have failed to reach an agreement. Many have been marching on the capital Delhi, with barricades and barbed wire lined up across the city to stop protesters from entering the city. The last major farming protest in India took plac...

Nigeria is struggling with a kidnapping epidemic. Every year hundreds of people are abducted and held for ransom. The kidnap crisis hit the headlines ten years ago when the Chibok school girls were snatched by Boko Haram militants - but now, arguably, the problem has got worse. We speak to Chimezie Ucheagbo, a journalist with BBC Igbo, about how it’s affecting every day life for Nigerians. Plus, w...

Thailand became the first Asian country to make cannabis legal back in June 2022. They are one of the very few nations in the world to let people use the drug recreationally. Farmers switched from wheat to weed and cannabis cafes have popped up all over the country. However, before even reaching the two-year mark, the Thai government led by Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin’s populist Pheu Thai part...

Alexei Navalny, the most prominent critic of Russia’s government, has died in a Russian prison, just months after he was placed in a high security cell in a remote Siberian penal colony. His allies, and his wife Yulia Navalnaya, blame President Vladimir Putin and say it was under his orders. What is the state of opposition in Russia without him? BBC Monitoring’s Russia editor, Vitaly Shevchenko, t...

It’s awards season. We’re talking Grammy’s, Golden Globes, Emmy’s and the Oscars. But, as usual, there’s been controversy about how diverse the nominees and winners are. After Barbie’s director Greta Gerwig was snubbed for the Best Director nomination, it’s got people talking. The BBC’s culture reporter Noor Nanji talks us through some of the times when awards shows failed in diversity and the way...

Rival gangs in El Salvador used to rule the streets. It was one of the most dangerous countries in the world, with a really high murder rate. But now its President claims it is one of the safest in the Western hemisphere. How did he do it? By creating a state of exception and arresting 75,000 people. Some of them have ended up in a new mega-jail, where inmates can’t have visitors, go outside, or e...

South Africa has the most industrialised and diverse economy in Africa. Yet it faces a major youth unemployment crisis with around four in ten young people jobless. Young people are becoming disenchanted and disenfranchised, which could impact elections later this year. Polls show that the governing ANC party could lose its outright majority for the first time in three decades. Siyabonga Ncala liv...

Netflix’s award-winning series ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ brought to light some of the sexist attitudes people have towards women competing in chess. It’s all fiction, but how much of this happens at real chess tournaments? Matt Graveling, a BBC Sport reporter explains how the professional world of chess works, including why there’s a Women’s Chess Championship and what it takes to compete. A BBC report...

In this episode we’re stepping into the world of art theft. According to the CIA it’s one of the top criminal enterprises in the world. A case was in the headlines recently after two British brothers admitted to raiding a museum in Switzerland and making off with iconic Chinese Ming dynasty era artefacts worth millions. They then fled abroad to try and shift the pieces. But were later caught. The...

American Football, Rugby, MMA, UFC. All these adrenaline-filled sports bring in millions of viewers each year, and athletes put their bodies and brains on the line to excel in them. But there’s increasing concern that head injuries are leading to serious mental health problems. BBC Sport reporter Bobbie Jackson tells us about the research into this. He’s been speaking to the Concussion Legacy Foun...

Hundreds of thousands of people are illegally crossing the border from Mexico into the US every month right now. Some of them try to get across the Sonoran desert - where temperatures can reach 50 degrees. Some people get lost there, and some die. A volunteer group called the “Eagles of the Desert” searches for missing migrants. BBC reporter Valentina Oropeza has been out with them and tells us ab...

Social media can be a messy business full of opinions and celebrity influence. But can celebs speak freely online, and what happens when they do? In some parts of the world celebs and influencers are sometimes censored from sharing opinions altogether, unless they align with the state. We look at three countries: Egypt, India and China. The BBC’s Jaidaa Taha in Egypt talks us through what football...

Guinea worm could soon be the second human disease to be eradicated. In the 1980s millions of cases were recorded annually in 21 countries in Africa and Asia. Now, thanks to huge efforts globally, only 13 reported cases remain. That’s according to The Carter Center - which is leading the international campaign to eradicate the disease. If successful, guinea worm will not only be the second disease...

It’s been three years since Myanmar’s military coup when the army took control of the country, a decade after agreeing to hand power to a civilian government. A civil war broke out after the after the military used lethal force to put down mass protests in the weeks after the coup. Before all this, Myanmar’s army was accused of committing a genocide against the Rohingya Muslim minority. Thousands...

Hong Kong’s government has said it wants to pass a new national security law. It comes four years after China imposed sweeping legislation in the wake of massive pro-democracy protests. The proposed law would lay out five major areas of offenses: treason, insurrection, theft of state secrets, sabotage and external interference. The proposal, known as Article 23 legislation, has long been a point o...

This is our simple(ish) guide to how America picks its president. In November 2024, America will go to the polls to pick the next President of the United States. At the moment it looks like we’ll see a 2020 rematch, Republican Donald Trump vs Democrat Joe Biden. But how do US elections actually work? They can be quite complicated, the candidate with the most votes doesn’t always win. In this episo...

Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi have been jailed for 14 years after being convicted of illegally profiting from state gifts. It’s the second sentence handed to Pakistan's former prime minister in two days. Khan, who was ousted as PM by his opponents in 2022, was already serving a three-year jail term for corruption. Imran Khan been a dominant figure in Pakistan for decades. He first rose to in...

More than 171 trillion pieces of plastic are estimated to be floating in the world's oceans. We’ve touched on the extent of the plastic problem before on the pod, but this time we’re looking into how exactly its affecting marine creatures. Researchers say hermit crabs are increasingly using plastic waste instead of shells for shelter and they are not the only wildlife being affected by our rubbish...

Demonstrations have been taking place across Kenya to protest femicide and violence against women. The demonstrations follow the murder of socialite Starlet Wahu and the dismemberment of student Rita Waeni earlier this month. BBC Africa journalist Danai Nesta Kupemba tells us about the cases and explains what changes are needed to protect women in Kenya. Esther Ogola, a BBC women’s affairs journal...

Nigeria’s youth curling team, the Broomzillas, are Africa’s first curling team to reach a Winter Youth Olympics. Their journey to the 2024 Gangwon Games in South Korea hasn’t been easy. They’ve struggled with funding and of course, as Nigeria doesn’t have freezing weather, access to ice to train is incredibly difficult. We speak to two of the team - Tomi and Fatiu. So how do they get ready for the...