What in the World

A special vote is taking place in Australia this weekend asking people whether Australia's constitution should be changed. The referendum seeks to create a body called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, which would allow Australia’s Indigenous communities to advise the government on issues that impact their lives. Tiffanie Turnbull, a BBC reporter based in Sydney, explains how the re...

Colombia is one of the most biodiverse countries in the world. But it’s also the most dangerous to be an environment activist. A report from Global Witness, a non-governmental organisation, says Colombia has the highest number of murders of green activists anywhere in the world. The BBC’s Maria Clara Montoya has spoken to two young climate defenders - why are they at risk and what is being done to...

It starts with downloading an app but pretty soon some scammers are going through your data, messaging your contacts, threatening you with violence and destroying your life. Poonam Agarwal from the BBC Eye Investigation team tells us about the blackmailers and the string of at least sixty suicides they’re connected to. Plus: How do young women in Afghanistan get an education when they’re banned fr...

China is in the middle of a housing market crisis. Two of its top property developers, Evergrande and Country Garden, are struggling to pay back debt or fulfil their promises to build properties they have already sold to millions of people. Fan Wang, a BBC reporter in Singapore, tells us about societal pressures young people face to be home owners in China. Chen Yen, a journalist at BBC’s Chinese...

Over the weekend, partygoers at a festival in Israel’s Negev desert were attacked by gunmen, with hundreds killed and taken hostage. At the same time, rockets hit cities across Israel and people barricaded themselves into their homes for safety. The attacks were carried out by the Palestinian militant group Hamas. They bulldozed the separation barrier between Israel and Gaza and targeted Israel fr...

It’s nearly three decades since the drive-by shooting that killed rapper Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas. Now Duane ‘Keefe D’ Davis has been arrested and charged as a suspect. Police say they now have enough evidence after Keefe D wrote a memoir detailing his involvement in the act. Sam Granville, a BBC producer in the Los Angeles bureau takes us back to September 1996 to explain what happened that nigh...

Thousands of people have been out on the streets of Ghana and organising protests online, using #OccupyJulorbiHouse. In 2019 - just four years ago - Ghana had the fastest growing economy in Africa. But now it’s in crisis, with high inflation and huge debts. Daniel Dadzie explains what in the world is going on with protests in Ghana? And from Jakarta, the BBC’s Astudestra Ajengrastri tells us about...

Thousands of people - including politicians, students and journalists - are killed in drug cartel violence in Mexico every year. One of the biggest cartels is Sinaloa. Joaquín "El Chapo” Guzmán led the cartel until he was jailed in 2019. He’s currently serving a life sentence. His wife, Emma Coronel, has been released from a three year jail term after pleading guilty to drug trafficking charges. B...

Niger and Gabon are the latest countries in Africa's Sahel to experience military coups. But that’s not the only issue that is facing the area. Beverly Ochieng from BBC Monitoring in Nairobi explains why several countries in the region are among the worst on the Global Terrorism Index from the Institute for Economics & Peace. And we look at which militant groups operate in the region, why Fran...

A decades-long territorial dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan, over the Nagorno-Karabakh region has flared up. Now nearly the entire ethnic Armenian population living there has fled. The United Nations has sent its first mission to the territory in about 30 years to assess the humanitarian situation. Azerbaijan has been accused of ethnic cleansing - which it denies. Alex Rhodes, from the What...

A truckload of rubbish enters the ocean every minute. Boyan Slat is on a mission to remove it. He’s the founder of The Ocean Cleanup, one of the organisations ridding the oceans of plastic. But how does so much rubbish end up in the ocean to begin with? Boyan explains. One solution is to stop the flow from polluted rivers. You may have spotted clean-up videos on TikTok, especially in Bali. We spea...

Our phones are powered by teeny tiny semi conductors. Taiwan produces over 60% of them. Huawei recently unveiled a phone with a chip made in mainland China. Chris Miller is an expert on this subject. He tells us why the United States is wary of this move. We know our phones have a chip in them, but what’s it made of? And what else is in our phones? They’re built with metals and materials from some...

After nearly five months, Hollywood writers have ended their strike, which brought the American film and TV industry to a halt. The Writers Guild of America said in a statement that union leaders ‘voted unanimously’ in favour of a deal - which some writers have called ‘exceptional’. It’ll now be voted on by union members. Some of the main sticking points included payments for reruns (known as resi...

There are loads of videos on TikTok of people calling their 20s the loneliest decade. But are they? We speak to Foyin Ogunrombi (@FoyinOG), a content creator from South Africa, who’s been discussing this topic on her podcast. Dr Meg Jay, a clinical psychologist and author of ‘The Defining Decade’, explains what’s happens in our brains, and why we may feel a little haywire. Plus, Dr Laurie Santos f...

Talks about net zero have been getting heated in the UK. It’s after the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he was still confident the country would hit net zero by 2050 — despite announcing changes to scale back some of the government’s key green policies. If you're confused about net zero and how to get on track to meet targets, Alex and Jordan Dunbar can help. Jordan is a presenter on The Climate Q...

What do Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, BTS and Olivia Rodrigo’s “world tours“ have in common? …None of them are going to Africa. And only two of them are going to Asia. Many international stars seem to skip huge parts of the world even though fans are desperate for them to come and perform. Why is this? Four BBC reporters join us to paint a picture of pop concerts around the world: Faith Oshoko from Niger...

Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said his government is investigating "credible" claims that Indian government agents may have been involved in the murder of Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar. It’s soured the relationship between the two countries. But how much do we really know about the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) - India’s version of the CIA? Rupsha Mukherjee, a senior report...

People seem to be turning to social media influencers for advice on what birth control method to use. Some influencers are suggesting that their followers stop taking hormonal contraception due to rumoured side effects. In Scotland, experts are worried that misinformation online may be contributing to record high abortion rates. Two BBC reporters talk us through attitudes towards hormonal contrace...

Palm oil is found in everything from chocolate to shampoo, pizza, toothpaste and deodorant. It’s hugely popular with food and cosmetics companies because it’s odourless, tasteless and colourless, and does not alter the smell, taste or look of products. But palm oil — 85% of which is produced in Indonesia and Malaysia — is also a major driver of deforestation, which threatens the habitat of endange...

A few days ago police in the United Arab Emirates intercepted a huge haul of illegal Captagon pills worth one billion dollars. It’s an addictive party drug that’s sweeping across the Middle East. A BBC investigation has found that most of the world’s supply of the drug is coming from Syria - and the trade has links to the highest levels of the Syrian government, something the Assad regime denies....

One year ago Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman from Iran, died in police custody. The country’s “morality police” had detained her for wearing her hijab too loosely. It sparked defiant protests across the country and calls for greater respect for women. Two Iranian reporters — Baran Abbasi from BBC Persian and Kian Sharifi from BBC Monitoring — explain what life is like for young women in Iran a ye...

Devastating flooding has washed away entire neighbourhoods, killing tens of thousands of people in Libya. In this episode, BBC Monitoring’s Amira Fathalla explains how the country’s history and unique political situation has made everything far more complicated. And Esme Stallard, a BBC climate reporter, examines the role climate change could have played in the storm’s severity. Email: whatinthewo...

The professional wrestling company WWE and the Mixed Martial Arts company UFC have merged in a giant deal that has created a new organisation called TKO Holdings. The WWE and UFC are quite different and fans of the brands aren’t sure what this deal will mean for them or the future of the sports. Alex from the What in the World team explains the differences between the UFC, which is a real combat s...

The new ruling legalises abortion across all 32 states. Mexico's Supreme Court said the denial of the possibility of a termination violated the human rights of women. BBC Mundo's Beatriz de la Pava talks us through what abortion laws are like across Latin America and explains how this rule-change might need a cultural shift for it to have significant impact. Also, the BBC's Mimi Swaby is with aid...

Rescue efforts are continuing in Morocco following a deadly earthquake. The worst affected areas are remote villages in the Atlas Mountains. Aid workers are struggling to reach survivors due to its poor infrastructure, rubble and boulders. Mimi Swaby, a BBC reporter, tells us about the ongoing rescue and relief efforts. Also on the pod - is 2023 India’s year of wins? They’ve just hosted the G20 su...