The Inquiry
Episodes
What Makes a Revolution Successful?
17 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Armenia's recent successful uprising is being celebrated as unprecedented for a former Soviet state. The so-called “velvet revolution” began on t...
Trump and Kim: Can They Close the Deal?
10 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Not long ago, they were calling each other names and raising fears of a nuclear war. Now, it is feasible they could together win the Nobel Peace Prize...
What’s the Real Difference Between the Sexes?
03 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In late December 2017, one of the world’s leading neurobiologists died of pancreatic cancer. His name was Ben Barres. He was an extraordinary scient...
What’s Killing Black American Babies?
26 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Black infants in America are twice as likely to die in their first year as white infants. This stark disparity has long puzzled doctors and researcher...
Are Nerve Agents Out of Control?
19 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Syria, Salisbury, Malaysia Airport – all sites of nerve agent attacks carried out in the past couple of years. Yet hundreds of countries have suppos...
How Did China Ban Ivory?
12 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
China’s ivory market is now closed for business. The country has long been one of the world's biggest consumers of ivory. But as of this year, buyi...
How Do Dictators Survive So Long?
05 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
When Robert Mugabe was deposed last year, he had ruled Zimbabwe for nearly four decades. How do dictators and authoritarians stay in power? James Till...
Is Plastic Doomed?
28 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The tide of public opinion is turning on plastic.The image of a whale with plastic stuck in its mouth on the BBC nature documentary Blue Planet 2 woke...
Have We Always Felt This Tired?
22 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
“Humans are the only species that willingly deprive themselves from sleep”. Ever since fire was discovered, we have traded off sleep time for othe...
What’s Happening to IS Fighters Now?
15 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
From courtrooms and prisons to rehab centres and martial arts training. We look to Europe, Iraq, Central Asia and Saudi Arabia to investigate how they...
Is Facebook in Trouble?
08 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
It is one of the largest, most profitable companies in the world, with billions of users, but more and more questions are being asked of Facebook. Acc...
What Happens When a Cyber-attack Strikes?
01 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The US and UK governments have accused Russia of orchestrating the most damaging cyber-attack in history. It caused billions of dollars’ worth of da...
How Do You Close The Gender Pay Gap?
22 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Women earn less than men in every country in the world. Women are now more educated than ever before. But, on average, they don't take home the same ...
Why is Cape Town Running Out of Water?
15 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
It is feared than in a few months’ time Cape Town could run out of water. The city is planning for so-called Day Zero when the supply is switched of...
Why Are the Taliban So Resilient?
08 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The Taliban have staged devastating attacks in the capital of Afghanistan, Kabul, in recent weeks. And a BBC study has discovered the group is active ...
How Did We Get Hooked on Plastic?
01 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The story of how the search for a material to replace ivory changed our lives forever. In the 19th century a billiard ball company placed an advert in...
What Does China Want in the South China Sea?
25 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
China has long been keen to assert its authority in the South China Sea. In recent years, it has undertaken a huge programme of island-building to sta...
What’s the Greatest Threat to Poland?
18 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The EU’s launched the ‘nuclear option’ against Poland, the first time it’s triggered the disciplinary measure in its history. They say recent ...
What is IS doing in the Philippines?
11 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In 2017 the black flag of the Islamic State group flew in the southern Philippines as a mixture of local and foreign fighters attacked the Islamic Cit...
Is Zero Tolerance the Right Approach for FGM?
04 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In 1994 a United Nations conference, backed by 173 countries, announced that ‘female genital mutilation’ was a “violation of basic rights and a ...
What’s The Point Of Bitcoin?
28 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Making sense of the digital currency and the ideology of its founders, fans and future.In 2010 a developer spent 10,000 bitcoin to buy two pizzas. Sev...
North Korea deep dive
22 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
What next for North Korea? Kim Jong-un's nuclear ambitions and their global repercussions are explored in this special, extended edition of the progra...
How Do We Rule The Universe?
21 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Governing moon miners, asteroid hunters and space junk sounds pretty tricky, but we better get our act together. This year the majority of space launc...
How Powerful is Facebook's Algorithm?
14 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
There is a place on the internet where almost two billion of us regularly go – many of us, every day. Facebook: the social network which Mark Zucker...
Are We Missing a Bigger Opioid Crisis?
07 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Forty-two Americans die every day from an overdose involving painkilling prescription opioids. President Donald Trump recently declared the US opioid ...
What Would an Iran-Saudi Arabia War Look Like?
30 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Missiles, fighter jets and mines waiting on the sea bed - war games in the gulf. Tension between Iran and Saudi Arabia is at an unprecedented level si...
Why Doesn’t Apple Pay More Tax?
23 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The world’s most profitable company is accused of aggressively dodging tax. Leaked documents in the Paradise Papers show Apple moved hundreds of bil...
What Does the Saudi Crown Prince Want?
16 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
He’s pushed through reforms but some fear there is a darker desire driving the ruler. In one night, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman arrested over a...
Is the Knowledge Factory Broken?
09 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Academic research stands accused of turning a blind eye to dodgy data, failing to reconcile contradictory findings and valuing money over knowledge. W...
How Powerful is Iran’s Revolutionary Guard?
02 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The growth and reach of a group labelled a ‘terror force’ by President Trump. On 13 October President Trump announced new sanctions against Iran’...
How Do You End A Civil War?
26 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Why internal conflicts end and what it might mean for Syria. The war in Syria is in its seventh year and there are few signs that an end is in sight. ...
Is the Pope Catholic?
19 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The head of the Roman Catholic Church has been accused of aiding the spread of heresy. A petition criticising the ambiguity of Pope Francis' statement...
Can We Teach Robots Ethics?
12 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
From driverless cars to "carebots", machines are entering the realm of right and wrong. Should an autonomous vehicle prioritise the lives of its passe...
Is Privacy Dead?
05 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
We all do it: ask a search engine things we wouldn’t dare ask a friend, post our lives on social media, hit the ‘agree’ button on privacy condi...
Could We Ban the Sale of Petrol and Diesel Cars Now?
28 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The list of nations legislating to ban the sale of petrol and diesel cars is growing. But these restrictions won’t come into effect for decades. Ai...
Can China solve the North Korea problem?
21 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
North Korea continues to rattle the world with its rapidly advancing weapons programme. Diplomacy with this Hermit Kingdom is broken and UN sanctions ...
How Do We Stop People Dying in Floods?
15 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Do we have the power to avoid the natural forces of intense rainfall? With rising sea levels and the threat of climate change, the risk of death due t...
What Can We Do With Our Dead?
07 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Cemeteries around the world are fast running out of space. As more and more people choose to live in cities, some can't even cope with the ashes left ...
How Has The Ku Klux Klan Lasted So Long?
31 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
North America’s most notorious racist group, the Ku Klux Klan fought the end of slavery in the 19th century, opposed civil rights in the 20th centur...
Are Video Games a Waste of Time?
24 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Video games are a huge industry, bigger than Hollywood, and billions of people around the world play them for fun. But new economic research in the US...
How Do You Fix Someone Else's Election?
17 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Smears, bots and bags of cash - we reveal some of the tricks used for fiddling elections around the world. German Chancellor Angela Merkel's security ...
Are South Africa's Police Failing?
10 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
A story of crime and often no punishment. South Africa's notoriously violent record has been getting worse. The number of murders and violent crimes i...
Who Gets to Have Their Own Country?
03 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
You might think simple rules decide the creation of nation states. You'd be wrong.There are plenty of people out there who want their own state - like...
What would war with North Korea look like?
27 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Alarm about North Korea has spiked. Earlier this month, the North claimed to have successfully test-launched an intercontinental ballistic missile tha...
Is it Time to Ban the Plastic Bottle?
20 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Every single second, 20,000 single-use drinking bottles are sold around the world. That is more than a million pieces of non-biodegradable rubbish pro...
Is Gene Editing Out of Control?
13 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
"This structure has novel features, which are of considerable biological interest." It was perhaps the greatest understatement of all time - the annou...
What's So Special About Qatar?
06 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The tiny state behind a global diplomatic feud.Qatar's landmass is so small it could fit into the UK 20 times over. Its citizen population is just a f...
Have We Always Felt This Tired?
29 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
“Humans are the only species that willingly deprive themselves from sleep”. Ever since fire was discovered, we have traded off sleep time for othe...
Why Does China Want to Revive the Silk Road?
22 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
China is currently developing the biggest infrastructure initiative of all time. Called the Belt and Road initiative, the trillion dollar plans involv...
Is the Greatest Threat to Putin Really Alexei Navalny?
15 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
On 12 June 2017 thousands of protesters took to the streets in over 160 towns and cities across Russia. Opposition leader Alexei Navalny called on peo...
How Do You Report Terrorism?
08 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
When violent jihadis struck London last Saturday, the rolling news networks kicked quickly into action. The story became front-page news around the wo...
Is Work Too Easy?
01 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Many of us find our jobs stressful, underpaid and the hours too long. But few would complain about work being less physically strenuous than in the pa...
Does Poverty Change The Way We Think?
25 May 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Does the experience of poverty actually take a physical toll on your brain? The Inquiry investigates the scientific claims that being poor affects how...
How Did Immigration Stop Being a Political Taboo in the UK?
18 May 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Brexit showed that the issue is now among the most important for British voters. And that’s likely to continue in June’s UK general election, as m...
How Did Venezuela Go From So Rich To So Poor?
11 May 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Once the richest country in South America, Venezuela is now in deep economic crisis.Children in school are fainting from hunger; patients are dying fr...
How did North Korea get the bomb?
04 May 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Tensions between the US and North Korea are running high. Kim Jong-Un has been testing long-range missiles and nuclear weapons. The Trump administrati...
Is Inequality About to Get Unimaginably Worse?
27 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Yuval Noah Harari, the author of Sapiens and Homo Deus, explores the long history of inequality – from the Stone Age onwards – and asks whether we...
How Powerful is Facebook's Algorithm?
20 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
There is a place on the internet where almost two billion of us regularly go – many of us, every day. Facebook: the social network which Mark Zucker...
What Happens When You Legalise Cannabis?
13 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In 2014 marijuana was legalised for recreational use in Colorado and Washington states in the US. Oregon, Alaska, California, Nevada and Massachusetts...
Why Is No-one Trying to Stop the War in Yemen?
06 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
It’s two years since the start of the Saudi-led military campaign in support of the Yemeni government which was ousted by Houthi rebels. The war has...
Do We Need A Plan B For Climate Change?
30 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
At a recent press conference on the new US budget questions were asked about funding for climate change initiatives. The answer was stark. “We’re ...
What’s Wrong With France?
21 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Every candidate in the upcoming presidential election in France is calling for change: change to the bureaucracy, the economy and even the culture. Fr...
Are Famines Always Man-Made?
14 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The UN has declared that South Sudan is in the grip of famine. Aid agencies have pointed the finger not at crop failure, weather or some other environ...
How is Mosul Being Liberated?
07 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Mosul is today the scene of the largest battle on Earth. Some 100,000 soldiers, police and militiamen are bearing down on the ancient Iraqi city. Back...
What Happened to Europe’s Migrant Crisis?
28 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Back in 2015 our radios and TV bulletins were full of stories of people trying to get to Europe. We saw distressing pictures as boats sank and lives w...
Why Can't We Stop Looking at our Phones?
21 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Our phones are powerful tools with lots of benefits – keeping in touch, accessing information and services and managing our lives. We are using them...
Is Donald Trump Good for Journalism?
14 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
President Trump has made no secret of his contempt for news organizations, stating that the media are "among the world's most dishonest people". He ha...
Can You Believe What You Read on WikiLeaks?
07 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Since 2006 the WikiLeaks website has been publishing secret documents and material obtained from whistleblowers and other sources. Many of the confide...
What Would ‘No Deal’ Mean For Brexit Britain?
31 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
"No deal is better than a bad deal." So said Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May, clarifying her country's position on Brexit negotiations with the E...
How do you launch a nuclear missile?
24 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
'Do we want his finger anywhere near the button?' Hillary Clinton asked during the US election campaign, referring to Mr Trump and the nuclear arsenal...
How Did the US Get Stuck With Guantanamo?
17 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In 2002 US military personnel at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba were given 96 hours to prepare their sleepy base for the arrival of hundreds of prisoners. “...
Is There Anybody Out There?
10 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
It’s a question humans have asked forever. Are we alone in space? But it wasn’t until the late 1960s that humans started an organised, systematic ...
Can We Eat Our Way Out Of Climate Change?
03 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Food production accounts for as much global greenhouse gas emissions as all forms of transport combined. That’s why many scientists think we can’t...
What Went Right in 2016?
27 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
A lot has gone wrong this year. We are not talking about Brexit or the election of Donald Trump – both of which split opinion in Britain and the US....
Should We Give Homeless People Homes?
15 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
It’s a surprisingly simple idea: to end long-term homelessness, give every person living on the streets a home. It can also be surprisingly effectiv...
What’s the Story of Aleppo?
15 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
We see and hear about Aleppo almost daily as news stories emerge of the hardship endured by its besieged people. After years of bombardment this once ...
Does Turkey Still Want to Join the EU?
13 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Turkey first applied to join the European club over 50 years ago. Over the subsequent decades-long flirtation, enthusiasm for the EU in Turkey has rem...
Why Do Governments Do Stupid Things?
06 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Trust in government is at an all-time low in many countries. From failed healthcare policies to missed intelligence, government blunders happen often ...
Why Did The Polls Get it Wrong (Or Did They)?
29 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Hillary Clinton lost the US election despite some polls putting her chances of winning at 99%.In the run up to the vote pollsters spent huge sums of m...
Why Does Anyone Still Smoke?
22 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Smoking tobacco is the single most dangerous voluntary activity in the world. It kills six million people a year, and if current trends continue that ...
After the Electoral Shocks of Brexit and the US Election - What Next?
15 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
On 8 November, as they stood in line to cast their votes, Americans were told by pollsters and pundits that, while close, the presidential race would ...
Was this the Most Divisive US Election Ever?
08 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The Clinton–Trump race has been extraordinary. Two of the most unpopular presidential candidates ever have slugged it out through a bitter campaign....
How Do We Fix Antibiotics?
25 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
By 2050, experts predict that drug-resistant infections will kill one person every three seconds unless the world’s governments take drastic steps n...
Can a Corrupt Country Get Clean?
11 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The International Monetary Fund says corruption siphons $2 trillion a year out of the global economy, slowing growth and fuelling poverty. Endemic cor...
Why are 10,000 Children Missing in Europe?
04 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Earlier this year Europol, the EU's law enforcement agency, announced 10,000 children had arrived in Europe, part of the wave of migration that has sw...
Is Islamic State Finished?
27 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
So-called Islamic State is on the run. Caught in a pincer movement in Syria and Iraq, the group has lost large swathes of territory over the past year...
Who Wins in a Cashless Economy?
20 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The death of cash has been predicted many times over the years. But in the last decade a future without coins and notes has become a real possibility ...
What’s the Point of Lotteries?
13 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
It is now hard to find a country that does not have a state sponsored lottery – even the remote Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan recently adopted one. Th...
Can Coral Reefs Survive?
06 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Over the past eight months almost a quarter of the Great Barrier Reef has died – according to some estimates – because of coral bleaching, which c...
Is Retirement Over?
30 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
For millennia human beings worked until they dropped. Then in the late 19th century, Otto von Bismarck started the first state pension in Germany. Th...
Would Donald Trump Be a Dangerous President?
23 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Earlier this month 50 senior Republican national security officials signed a letter arguing that Donald Trump “lacks the character, values and exper...
Why Don’t Cities Want The Olympics?
16 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The Olympic Games has a problem. In recent years the number of cities entering bids to host either the Winter or Summer Olympics has dropped dramatica...
Has Russia Won In Ukraine?
09 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The fighting in Ukraine has fallen off the front pages recently after making headline news in 2014. But Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed separatist...
How Did we Save the Ozone Layer?
02 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
On 30 June this year, a study was released in one of the world's top scientific journals. It explained how a group of scientists who had been measurin...
Can Colombia Reintegrate the Farc?
26 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
After more than 50 years of armed conflict that has left 200,000 dead and millions displaced, Colombia is on the brink of peace. A final deal between ...
Is Brexit Inevitable?
19 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
“Brexit means Brexit,” says Theresa May, Britain’s new prime minister. It sounds pretty unequivocal: the UK voted in a referendum to leave the E...
Can Trump Win?
12 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Donald Trump has shocked the US political establishment by knocking out every other Republican candidate to become his party’s presumptive candidate...
Can You Make Bankers Behave Better?
05 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The $5bn settlement recently agreed by Goldman Sachs is the latest in a long list of multi-billion dollar fines paid by banks implicated in the 2008 f...
Can the EU Survive?
28 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The UK has voted to leave the EU, sending shockwaves through Britain’s political class and its economy. Whatever the fate of Britain – and many fe...
Why Do So Many People Dislike Hillary?
20 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Hillary Clinton is the odds-on favourite to be the next president of the USA. But polls show more and more Americans view her unfavourably. In fact, t...