The Inquiry

Driverless cars powered by renewable energy whisking their healthy and happy citizens between gleaming skyscrapers, criss-crossing efficient roads. That’s the dream of many so called smart cities. The trend for ‘smart cities’ has grown immensely over the last decade and their definition has evolved too. Hundreds are planned or are already being built around the world, in both rich and poor countries. From Google’s Sidewalk city to Eko Atlantic in Nigeria, tech companies are seeking to tame our ever more urban world. But critics worry that instead of being clever solutions they simply reinforce the existing poverty and inequality. How can a tech giant solve the problems of the developing world when people need water not wifi? We ask, are smart cities dumb? Presenter: Kavita Puri Producer: Jordan Dunbar Image: Sunrise in New York City Credit: Gary Hershorn/Getty Images

Tens of thousands of children have been forced to join militia or terror groups in recent years. The Inquiry looks at conflicts around the world to find out what it takes to rehabilitate a child who has witnessed or taken part in violent extremism. We hear from experts who say it is as important to mend the community as much as the child. And we consider the position of stateless children, including those who have never been registered anywhere and those whose nationality is in dispute. If they end up belonging nowhere, can they ever recover? Presenter: Feranak Amidi Producer: Rosamund Jones Image: Children holding guns Credit: Mohammed Hamoud/Getty Images

Suicide is the second leading cause of death among 15-29 year olds globally. But innovative and unexpected ways to tackle this public health issue are emerging. From Nigeria to Finland, ordinary people and experts are putting their own experiences and expertise to use in coming up with ways that help prevent deaths in their communities. School timetables, video games and social media are among some of the new ways being trialled to cut deaths and break the taboo surrounding youth suicide. We ask what can be done to stop young people taking their own lives? Presenter: Kavita Puri Producer: Lucy Proctor (A young man watches the sunrise. Photo credit: Chalabala/ Getty Images)

Three million people in Yemen have been forced from their homes, and the dead are estimated to number many tens of thousands. But, compared to similar conflicts, global attention has been slight. The Inquiry asks why. It explores how the media has told the Yemeni story, and the impact valuable arms sales have had on international pressure – or the lack of it – to bring the conflict to an end. There are other factors too. The conflict in Yemen has created countless refugees, but they have not fled beyond the country’s borders. And Yemen’s divisive history has created a diaspora community that struggles to speak with one voice. What will it take to shine a brighter light on Yemen? Presenter: Kavita Puri Producer: Rosamund Jones (A woman holds her baby who is suffering from severe malnutrition, in Marib, Yemen, December 2018. Photo Credit: Said Ibicioglu/Getty Images)

The tech giant has had a meteoric rise over the last ten years. It has overtaken Apple in the global smartphone market, and its equipment is in telecommunications systems in 170 countries worldwide. But Huawei now finds itself at the centre of a global scandal. Its chief financial officer - the daughter of the company’s founder - is under house arrest in Canada, accused of selling telecom equipment to Iran in contravention of US sanctions. A week later, a US court charged the whole company with bank fraud, obstruction of justice and theft of technology from rival T-Mobile. The company has been banned in New Zealand and Australia, and there are moves in the US to stop government employees from buying their products. Critics say if it wins the contracts for the new 5G network being created globally, it could give the Chinese government control over everything from smart phones, to cars, to pacemakers in other countries. So why has the success story soured? This week, we ask: what’s so scary about Huawei?

More children than ever before attend school – so why have reading rates been so slow to improve? In some countries teachers are absent from class one day every week, in others early years education barely exists. And many children are taught to read in languages they do not speak. The Inquiry explores what reading skills get measured, and whether they are the right ones. And it asks how the quality of literacy education could best be improved. Presenter: Kavita Puri Producer: Rosamund Jones (image: Young school boy writing on a blackboard in Kenya. Photo Credit:Anthony Asael/Getty images)

In November 2018, a Chinese scientist stunned the world by announcing that he had successfully edited the genes of two embryos. These twins had their DNA changed to try and make them resistant to HIV, it was only successful in one. Shock and outrage followed as the media proclaimed that the age of the designer baby had arrived and we had opened a door that could never be closed. The Chinese government ordered an inquiry and the scientist rumoured to be put under house arrest. For many in the genetics community it had only been a matter of time until this happened. The game changer came in the form of a new technology known as CRISPR, a relatively simple and cheap way of changing genes. One that could be used in fertility clinics worldwide. Does this now mean an age of elite super humans could be born to the ultra-rich? Children created with superior traits, tall, beautiful and hyper intelligent. The truth is not so simple. This week we ask: should we fear ‘designer babies’? Producer: Jordan Dunbar Pre

Ever since Donald Trump took office in 2016 his critics have been focussed on getting rid of him. As the Mueller probe into Russian collusion in the presidential election heads into its last six months, several members of President Trump’s inner circle have been convicted of serious crimes. For some, it’s only a matter of time before Trump himself is implicated. For others, the evidence so far is simply not substantial enough. With Democrats now in control of Congress, the votes are there to impeach Trump and send him for trial in the Senate. But what would it take to get the two thirds majority needed to remove him from office? Producer: Lucy Proctor Presenter: Victoria Uwonkunda (Photo: Protesters outside of the Fox News Channel headquarters demand the resignation of President Donald Trump. Credit: Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Human activity is sending animals and plants extinct. But there is a fightback going on. Scientists all over the world are coming up with radical solutions to save them - from transplanting polar bears, to “de-extincting” a very strange frog. And experts say each one of us can make a difference. So is it too late to save the planet, or can we stop a mass extinction? Contributors include: Dr Simon Clulow – Macquarie University, Australia Dr Karen Poiani – CEO, Island Conservation Professor Jane Hill – University of York, UK Professor Thomas Elmqvist – Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University Presenter: Feranak Amidi Producer: Beth Sagar-Fenton (image: Romeo, the Sehuencas water frog / Courtesy of Global Wildlife Conservation, Austin Tx USA)

This week we’re looking at nothing less than the state of life on earth. The planet has seen mass extinctions before, periods of widespread and dramatic species loss. Some now fear human activity is driving another one: land cleared for farms, homes and roads; waters filled with pollution and emptied of fish; skies choked with gasses causing climate change. But does it add up to a mass extinction? In the first of a two-part series, we examine the evidence of species loss and compare it with the geological record. Presenter: Neal Razzell Producers: Josephine Casserly and Siobhan O’Connell (Image: Dinosaur skeleton, Credit: Getty images)

Millions of us take a vitamin tablet every day - how did they become so popular? We follow the rise and rise of vitamins from their discovery just a century ago, to the multi-billion dollar market of today. The story of how the vitamin supplement entered our daily lives takes us from the targeted guilt-tripping of concerned mothers, to the use of vitamins as a weapon against the Nazis, via a plan for vitamin doughnuts. Experts question whether most of us need to take them at all – so how did we get hooked on vitamins? Contributors include: Dr Lisa Rogers – World Health Organization Catherine Price – Author of Vitamania: How Vitamins Revolutionized the Way We Think About Food Dr Salim Al-Gailani - Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge Matthew Oster – Head of Consumer Health, Euromonitor International Presenter: Kavita Puri Producer: Beth Sagar-Fenton (Photo: a woman shopping at 'Mr Vitamins', a chain of supplement outlets in Sydney, Australia. Credit: Saeed Khan/Gett

#MeToo became viral following allegations of sexual harassment and violence at the hands of Harvey Weinstein. Now women and men in their millions around the world have been mobilised by the hashtag to share their stories of abuse. But its founder Tarana Burke fears the movement has moved away from its original remit to give a voice to victims of sexual violence. She worries it is being talked about as a vindictive plot against men. So what is the reality on the ground around the globe? We hear about the impact of the #MeToo in India and Iran. What did it really achieve? Presenter: Kavita Puri Producer: Jim Frank (South Korean demonstrators at a rally for the country's #MeToo movement in Seoul, 2018. Photo credit: Jung Yeon-Je/Getty Images)

Journalists have been subject to more killings, and increasing levels of violence and intimidation in 2018, according to monitoring groups. This year alone more than 30 have been murdered, including Mexican veteran journalist Carlos Domínguez Rodríguez who was stabbed to death in January, 5 journalists shot dead at their office in Annapolis in the US in June, and the story that has dominated the news, the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at his consulate in Istanbul in October. The suspects range from organised criminals to state-sponsored assassins. And it’s not just about murder – imprisonments and intimidation are also on the rise. Why should the public care? What’s behind the surge? And how can the press and the public fight back? We talk to those journalists and activists from across the world to find out: is this the most dangerous time to be a journalist? Contributors include: Pavla Holcova - Czech Centre for Investigative Journalism Sothearin Yeang – former journalist, Radio Free As

The UK voted to leave the European Union in June 2016. More than two years on, it’s still not clear how that will happen, or what will come after. Consensus within Westminster seems impossible, and if the deal currently on offer from Brussels is voted down on December 11, the UK could crash out of the EU with no deal at all. What makes it so hard to come up with a solution? The BBC has followed all of the twists and turns of the Brexit negotiations in minute detail. In this special programme, four correspondents from across the organisation give their take on what makes Brexit such a fraught process. Katya Adler, Europe Editor Chris Morris, Reality Check Correspondent Alex Forsyth, Political Correspondent John Campbell, Northern Ireland Business and Economics Correspondent Presenter: Edward Stourton Producer: Lucy Proctor (Brexit Map - Getty Creative)

There’s talk of a new Cold War between Russia and the West. What responsibility does the West carry for the dismal state of relations? Russian leaders say Nato has expanded far beyond the borders that were agreed when the Soviet Union collapsed and a new European order was thrashed out. They see troops and hardware stationed close to their towns and cities as highly provocative. America and the EU are seen as meddling in the internal affairs of Russia and the states surrounding it by funding pro-democracy movements and helping to topple regimes. And a new arms race is underway. Russian military leaders perceive an active threat from the West – are they right? The previous edition was: Is Russia At War With The West? Presenter: Kavita Puri Producer: Lucy Proctor

There are currently a number of serious allegations made in the West against Russia. They include the attempted murder of the former spy Sergei Skripal on British soil; interference in the 2016 US election; the hacking of the American electricity grid. To some, it feels like the West is under attack. But do any of these actions amount to war? Olga Khovostunova, a Russian media analyst, describes the effect of the collapse of the Soviet Union on the psyche of President Putin and his close knit circle of security chiefs. For them, the threat from the West is real. Norwegian foreign correspondent Oystein Borgen says Russia is engaged in a hybrid war with the West, in which Norway has become a little-known front line. Lawyer Michael Schmitt, from the US Naval College, sets out how Russian security chiefs, almost certainly surrounded by a team of international law experts, operate in the grey zone of international law. Political scientist Kimberley Marten explains how private military contractors operating

There are different routes to pariah status. North Korea, with its gross human rights abuses and illicit nuclear weapons programme tops the list and represents the classic pariah - completely ostracized from the international system. Another sure-fire way to become a pariah is to sponsor international terrorism, like Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya in the 20th century. But as his example shows, international rehabilitation can happen almost overnight. Then there are less clear cut pariahs like Zimbabwe, condemned by the West but very much part of the regional African system. Four expert witnesses examine these cases and explore whether the notion of a pariah state is meaningful in the 21st century multi-polar world. Presenter: Kavita Puri Producer: Lucy Proctor (Photo: Ostracized /Getty Images)

Warnings about the approaching post-antibiotics apocalypse have been sounding for years. There are now strains of deadly bacteria that are resistant to all antibiotics. This means that doctors are faced with patients who have completely untreatable infections. Hundreds of thousands of people worldwide are dying due to antibiotic resistance - and this number is set to rise rapidly. If we carry on like this, scientists predict we will return to a pre-antibiotic era, where organ transplants, chemotherapy and C-sections are impossible. We have come a long way since 1928, when the famous chance discovery of penicillin led to a golden age in which antibiotics were seen as wonder drugs, heralding in an age of huge medical advances and increased human life spans. But by the 1990s we were running out of new antibiotics and infections were again a killer. How did this happen? Our expert witnesses are medic and historian, Dr Eric Sidebottom, Dr Scott Podolsky of Harvard Medical School, journalist Maryn McKenna a

The burgeoning relationship between China and Africa has been one of the great economic stories of the 21st century. Billions of dollars of investment and loans from China have created radical change in many African countries. But not everyone is happy, with some even claiming this is a new form of colonialism. As signs of discontent grow in countries like Zambia, and investment numbers start to slip down, we ask: is the China-Africa love affair over? Contributors include: Dr Lauren Johnston – Research Fellow, University of Melbourne Professor Lina Benabdallah – Assistant Professor of Politics & International Affairs, Wake Forest University Laura Miti – Executive Director, Alliance for Community Action Professor Stephen Chan – Professor of World Politics, School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London) Presenter: Linda Yueh Producer: Beth Sagar-Fenton (A Chinese railway worker drills holes on the newly put railway tracks in Dondo, outside Luanda, Angola. Photo credit: Per-Anders

Thousands died when an earthquake and tsunami struck Palu, Indonesia – but could more lives have been saved? Accusations have been made of a host of failings: alert systems that were out of action, sirens that didn’t sound, a government slow to give emergency help - even people who were too busy filming the disaster to run away. How much truth is there to this? Was everything done to warn people beforehand, and rescue people in the aftermath? We speak to experts on the ground and around the world to find out. Contributors include: Lian Gogali – Founder, Institute Mosintuwu Harald Spahn – Consultant geologist 2006-2013, German-Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System project Harkunti Pertiwi Rahayu – Chair, Indonesian Association of Disaster Experts & Assistant Professor, Bandung Institute of Technology Mark Astarita – Former Director of Fundraising, British Red Cross Presenter: Kavita Puri Producer: Beth Sagar-Fenton (A man looks for his belongings amid the debris of his destroyed house i