Where the world and America meet, with episodes each weekday. The world is changing. Decisions made in the US and by the second Trump administration are accelerating that change. But they are also a symptom of it. With Asma Khalid in DC, Tristan Redman in London, and the backing of the BBC’s international newsroom, The Global Story brings clarity to politics, business and foreign policy in a time of connection and disruption.
Where the world and America meet, with episodes each weekday. The world is changing. Decisions made in the US and by the second Trump administration are accelerating that change. But they are also a symptom of it. With Asma Khalid in DC, Tristan Redman in London, and the backing of the BBC’s international newsroom, The Global Story brings clarity to politics, business and foreign policy in a time of connection and disruption.
We are away for Christmas, so this is a repeat of a previous episode.
Mistrust in science has never been higher. Fewer people are getting vaccinated, a known vaccine skeptic is leading the most powerful health agency in America and an outbreak of measels in Texas this year led to the first fatalities in almost a decade. Then, in August, a gunman opened fire on the headquarters of the Centre for Disease Control with many speculating he was fuelled by misinformation about health.
Increasingly this misinformation is being exported around the world.
Marianna Spring is the BBC’s Social Media Investigations Correspondent and tells the story of how suspicion of science in America helped radicalise a British mom with devastating consequences.
Producers: Cat Farnsworth and Lucy Pawle
Executive producer: Annie Brown
Mix: Travis Evans
Senior news editor: China Collins
Photo: Kate Shemirani. Martin Pope / Getty
We are away for Christmas, so this is a repeat of a previous episode.
Are we living through the slow death of reading - replaced by an addictive screen culture that fragments our attention and floods us with trivial or unreliable information? Writer and voracious reader James Marriott believes we are entering a post-literate age with profoundly negative consequences for education, culture and democracy itself. In today's episode, James traces how an 18th century ‘reading revolution’ shaped the modern-world - and what might follow its sudden decline.
Producers: Aron Keller and Sam Chantarasak
Editor: James Shield
Mix: Travis Evans
Senior news editor: China Collins
Photo: The al-Nahda al-Arabiya library (Arab Renaissance Library) in central Baghdad. AHMED JALIL/EPA.
We are away for Christmas, so this is a repeat of a previous episode.
Donald Trump has spent this year trying to negotiate a deal to end the war in Ukraine. So far, Vladimir Putin doesn’t seem interested in the US’ proposals.
One man who has experience successfully negotiating with Russia – and many other American adversaries – is Roger Carstens, former Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs. From 2020 to 2025 he worked to free dozens of US citizens taken hostage and wrongfully detained around the world, including Russia. Securing their release often required complex deals that took years to put together.
What does it take to successfully negotiate with Vladimir Putin’s Russia?
Producer: Lucy Pawle
Executive producer: James Shield
Senior news editor: China Collins
Mix: Travis Evans
Photo: Roger Carstens. Credit: BBC
We are away for Christmas, so this is a repeat of a previous episode.
AI companies are seeing a monumental surge in investment – but some experts are now warning of the risks of an economic bubble.
Could AI be the biggest market bubble since the dot-com crash? Or is it a genuinely transformative technology that’s simply taking time to deliver? We speak to the BBC’s Evan Davis.
Producers: Aron Keller and Xandra Ellin
Executive Producer: James Shield
Mix: Travis Evans
Senior news editor: China Collins
Photo: Artificial Intelligence mobile apps. Hannibal Hanschke/EPA/Shutterstock
We are away for Christmas, so this is a repeat of a previous episode.
In 1994, Ukraine surrendered the world's third-largest nuclear arsenal, inherited from the collapsed Soviet Union, in exchange for security assurances from the US, Russia, and the UK.
Ukraine’s denuclearisation is often considered a huge success story in nuclear non-proliferation, but in retrospect, it may have paved the way for Putin's 2022 invasion.
As talk of US-European security guarantees for Ukraine resurfaces in the context of tentative Russia-Ukraine peace talks, we speak with BBC Paris correspondent Andrew Harding about the history of the 1994 agreement, and consider whether Ukraine would ever again believe promises made to protect it.
Producers: Sam Chantarasak and Xandra Ellin
Executive producer: Annie Brown
Mix: Travis Evans
Senior news editor: China Collins
Photo: France's President Emmanuel Macron and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky. Ludovic Marin/ Getty
We are away for Christmas, so this is a repeat of a previous episode.
Apple is promising to make more products in the US, backed by a $600bn investment over the next four years. But after decades of relying on Chinese manufacturing that promise is going to be tough to keep.
Today we’re joined by journalist and author Patrick McGee to discuss whether Apple can navigate the demands of Donald Trump’s America First agenda and disentangle itself from a made-in-China business model.
Producers: Hannah Moore and Aron Keller
Executive producers: James Shield and Annie Brown
Mix: Nicky Edwards and Travis Evans
Senior news editor: China Collins
Photo: Apple CEO Tim Cook. Manuel Orbegozo/Reuters
We are away for Christmas, so this is a repeat of a previous episode.
For much of the 21st century, our social lives have been shaped, at least in part, on the internet. But in an age of influencers, generative AI, complex algorithms, and politically entangled technocrats, some users say social media is growing less, well, social.
So, is social media dead? Or is it just becoming something else? We speak with New Yorker staff writer Kyle Chayka about what happened to social networks, and what their transformation suggests about the future of media.
Producers: Xandra Ellin and Aron Keller
Executive Producer: James Shield
Mix: Travis Evans
Senior News Editor: China Collins
Photo: Social media apps on a phone. Yui Mok/PA
We are away for Christmas, so this is a repeat of a previous episode.
In September, President Trump and the U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. held a press conference in which they made extraordinary new claims about autism. They suggested a potential link between the use of Tylenol during pregnancy and the development of autism. They also advocated spacing out childhood vaccinations.
The two men's interest in the link between vaccines and autism goes back decades but these claims did not originate in the US. They trace back to the UK in 1998, when disgraced former doctor Andrew Wakefield first published his now-debunked theory linking MMR vaccines to autism cases in children.
The science journalist Adam Rutherford explains to the Global Story how the Wakefield vaccine conspiracy became the biggest medical disinformation disaster in recent history, and how these ideas found fertile ground in the Trump administration.
Producers: Viv Jones, Valerio Esposito
Executive producer: Annie Brown, James Shield
Mix: Travis Evans
Senior news editor: China Collins
Photo: President Trump & Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
Attacks by Jewish settlers on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have broken UN records this year, reaching the highest level in almost 20 years.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has blamed a “minority” that “does not represent the large settler public”. Meanwhile, Israel’s security cabinet has just approved the recognition of 19 new settlements as the government continues its settlement expansion push. We’re joined by the BBC’s Sarah Montague who has been speaking with Palestinians who say they are experiencing settler intimidation, and with a prominent settler who is a member of the Israeli parliament. Producers: Viv Jones, Valerio Esposito and Xandra Ellin
Executive Producer: Bridget Harney
Mix: Marty Peralta
Senior news editor: China Collins
Photo: Israeli border police remove settlers near Hebron. Credit Abir Sultan/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock.
Tensions between the US and Venezuela are reaching a dangerous tipping point. The Trump administration has accused president Nicolas Maduro of leading a drug cartel and declared Maduro's government a “foreign terrorist organisation”. President Trump has also ordered a naval blockade of the country’s oil-sanctioned exports using what he calls “the largest ever armada assembled in the history of South America”.
In today’s episode, we speak to BBC Mundo journalist, Jorge Perez Valeri to ask whether the escalating military rhetoric from Washington could be paving the way for war, and how Venezuelans, already grappling with deep economic hardship, are feeling about the prospect. Producers: Sam Chantarasak, Lucy Pawle and Aron Keller. Editor: Bridget Harney Mix: Marty Peralta Senior news editor: China Collins Photo: Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro attends an event at the Mariche Metrocable station. Credit: Reuters.
The promise of pore-free, glassy, youthful-looking skin has made Korean beauty products a global phenomenon. Americans spent as much $1.7bn (£1.3bn) on K-beauty in 2024, according to industry estimates, and the US now imports more cosmetics from South Korea than any other country.
How did the South Korean government help K-beauty ride the soft power wave that has also brought us TV shows like KPop Demon Hunters, and pop groups such as Blackpink and BTS? And what are the risks of buying into the ‘perfect’ beauty ideals that the industry promotes?
Today, we speak to Elise Hu, the host of TED Daily Talks host and author of 'Flawless: Lessons in Looks and Culture from the K-Beauty Capital'.
Producer: Hannah Moore
Executive producer: Bridget Harney
Mix: Marty Peralta
Senior news editor: China Collins
Photo: Model Lee Hyun-yi attends the photocall event celebrating the launch of AHC’s new product ‘Full Lift Eye Cream for Face’ at the FKI Tower Conference Center in Yeouido, Yeongdeungpo-gu. Credit: iMBC/Imazins via Getty Images.
After the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, Australia tightened its gun laws, and has since been considered a world-leading example by gun control advocates of how to lessen the chances of mass shootings occurring.
However, the mass murder of at least 15 people in an antisemitic attack at Bondi beach on Sunday has again raised the issue of gun access, and Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese has said he is “ready to fight” to strengthen the laws again.
On today’s show, Ariel Bogle, an investigations reporter with Guardian Australia, explains why the number of guns in Australia has been rising, and how stricter laws might be received in the country.
Producers: Hannah Moore and Xandra Ellin
Executive producer: James Shield
Mix: Marty Peralta
Senior news editor: China Collins
Photo: Photo of unregistered handguns that were returned to police, near Smederevo, Serbia. Credit: Dimitrije Goll /EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock
President Trump says a Ukraine peace deal is ‘closer than ever’ following talks in Berlin with European officials and a delegation from Ukraine. But is it?
As the fourth anniversary of Russia's full scale invasion approaches, no peace deal can be agreed without Vladimir Putin’s support. Can he be persuaded to accept anything short of a Russian victory? We speak to the BBC’s Russia editor, Steve Rosenberg.
Producers: Valerio Esposito, Viv Jones and Xandra Ellin.
Executive producer: James Shield.
Senior news editor: China Collins.
Mix: Travis Evans.
Photo: Russian President Vladimir Putin. Credit: Gavriil Grigorov/Sputnik/Pool via Reuters.
Australia is reeling after its deadliest mass shooting in decades, in which gunmen opened fire on Jewish people gathered for a Hanukkah event on Bondi Beach in Sydney. At least 16 people have been killed – among them a 10-year-old and a Holocaust survivor. The massacre has triggered a reckoning in Australia and beyond.
While some are asking how this horror could have happened, others believe an attack like this was grimly inevitable after a string of antisemitic incidents in Australia in the past few years. In today’s episode, we speak to the BBC’s Religion Editor Aleem Maqbool and the ABC’s Hamish Macdonald to explore why antisemitism has surged since October 7th 2023, and why many Jewish communities feel their governments aren’t doing enough to keep them safe.
Producers: Cat Farnsworth and Lucy Pawle
Mix: Travis Evans
Senior news editor: China Collins
Photo: Rabbi Yossi Freidman at a memorial for shooting victims at Sydney's Bondi Beach. Mark Baker /AP
Fighting broke out last week on the Thai-Cambodian border, despite a US-brokered ceasefire in July. The conflict was one of the eight wars that President Trump claimed to have ended, so why did this peace deal unravel?
We speak to Jonathan Head, the BBC’s southeast Asia correspondent, from Surin on the Thai side of the border.
Producers: Xandra Ellin and Sam Chantarasak
Executive producer: Bridget Harney
Senior news editor: China Collins
Mix: Travis Evans
Photo:
**This episode contains descriptions of abuse and violence**
In November, the Italian parliament voted unanimously to introduce the term “femicide” into the country’s legal code. The murder of a woman – on account of her gender – is now a distinct crime, punishable with a life sentence.
The United Nations reported that last year nearly 50,000 women and girls were killed by intimate partners or family members.
Italy is the latest country to adopt a specific law in an effort to curb violence against women following a string of brutal murders of young women.
One of the most publicised was Giulia Tramontano, who was repeatedly stabbed by her partner while seven-months pregnant. Her murder - along with another case – sparked fierce outrage across Italy, culminating in the new law being passed.
In this episode, we hear from Giulia’s sister, Chiara Tramontano, and the BBC Southern Europe correspondent Sarah Rainsford.
Producer: Valerio Esposito
Executive Producer: James Shield
Mix: Travis Evans
Senior News Editor: China Collins
Photo: A framed photo of Giulia Tramontano at her funeral. Credit: Alessandro Memoli/KONTROLAB/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Europe is facing the prospect of ‘civilizational erasure’. That is the official view of the Trump administration, as put in a radical policy document that was released late last week.
The US government’s new National Security Strategy paints the most complete picture yet of who the administration sees as its allies and its adversaries, and it has left Europe’s leaders reeling.
Today, we speak to the BBC's State Department correspondent, Tom Bateman, about how Trump has turned traditional US foreign policy on its head.
Producer: Viv Jones, Lucy Pawle and Hannah Moore
Executive producer: James Shield
Sound engineer: Travis Evans
Senior news editor: China Collins
(Photo: US President Donald Trump boards Air Force One, 9 December, 2025. Credit: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)
This week, Syrians have been celebrating the first anniversary of the fall of the Assad regime and the end of almost 14 years of civil war. In the year since, the former jihadist turned leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, has been on an international charm offensive. But has life improved for ordinary Syrians back home? And has Sharaa proven himself to be the reformer the west wants him to be?
Today we’re joined from Damascus by the BBC’s international editor, Jeremy Bowen.
Producer: Sam Chantarasak
Executive producer: James Shield
Senior news editor: China Collins
Mix: Travis Evans
Photo: A young girl sits on her father's shoulders during a parade marking the first anniversary of the ousting of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Idlib, Syria. Bilal al-Hammoud/EPA/Shutterstock
**This episode contains discussion of bullying and suicide**
Australian teens are bracing for a new law coming into effect this week that will ban social media accounts for anyone under the age of 16. The Government says the legislation is designed to protect the mental wellbeing of Australian children and teens – but it’s already proving controversial, not least among American tech companies and some politicians who see the ban as a threat to free speech.
In today’s episode, we are joined by Katy Watson, the BBC’s Australia correspondent, to discuss how the country became a global test case for a bold new policy – and crucially, whether it will succeed.
Producers: Cat Farnsworth, Aron Keller and Xandra Ellin
Mix: Travis Evans
Senior News Editor: China Collins
Photo: A teen using her phone ahead of social media band for users under 16. Hollie Adams/Reuters
After an Afghan national was charged with shooting two National Guard members in Washington DC, President Donald Trump called for sweeping changes in immigration policy and pledged to "permanently pause migration" from all "third world countries".
Afghan nationals, especially those who worked with the US mission in Afghanistan, may now find themselves in a particularly precarious position. Asma and Tristan discuss these rapid recent policy changes, and the BBC’s Mahfouz Zubaide shares recent reporting on how Afghans in America are getting caught up in the crackdown.
Producers: Viv Jones, Xandra Ellin
Executive Producer: Bridget Harney
Senior News Editor: China Collins
Mix: Marty Peralta
Photo: People leave flowers at the scene where two National Guard members were shot in Washington DC. Credit: Will Oliver/EPA/Shutterstock