South Korea’s playground for the rich and famous has been rocked by a major scandal over the alleged drugging and rape of women and young girls. Police have arrested more than 350 people in connection with claims of sexual abuse and exploitation in Seoul’s Gangnam nightclub district. A BBC investigation spoke to victims who say they were drugged with an undetectable substance before being dragged into nightclub back rooms or alleyways and then raped by one or more men, sometimes while being film...
Jun 26, 2019•20 min
Boris Johnson is the clear favourite to replace Theresa May. He easily made it to the final along with Jeremy Hunt after getting backing from more than 100 Tory MPs. But things have gone a bit wrong for him after his neighbours recorded a row with his girlfriend Carrie Symonds and gave it to the press. He’s also faced criticism for hiding from TV debates – Jeremy Hunt has told him to “man up”. So with a less than a month to go before we have a new Prime Minister, just how vulnerable is Boris Joh...
Jun 25, 2019•25 min
The Chinese authorities say they are schools students attend voluntarily. Human rights groups say hundreds of thousands of Muslims are detained there without trial. So what’s really going on inside the mysterious camps in Xinjiang, the majority Muslim province in the far west of China? BBC China Correspondent John Sudworth and his producer Kathy Long have been attempting to get to the truth of the story for months, studying satellite images and getting as close as they can to the tall walls and ...
Jun 24, 2019•18 min
Johny Pitts is a writer, photographer and TV presenter who you may have seen on CD:UK, Blue Peter or MTV. He’s now written a book called Afropean which, among other things, has helped him understand his heritage as a boy from Sheffield with a white-English mother and an African-American father. In the book Johny also sets out to explore the state of black culture and identity in Europe today as he travels from Sheffield to France and onwards to Russia. He came into the Beyond Today studio to tel...
Jun 21, 2019•17 min
Mobeen Azhar thought his hometown was a sleepy place where nothing really happened. Then a young man was shot by police on the motorway and Mobeen went home to investigate the killing. He found way more than he bargained for, and uncovered some uncomfortable truths about the place he grew up.
Jun 20, 2019•30 min
Two million people took to the streets in Hong Kong over the past week to protest against a controversial extradition bill. Led by young people the protests are a direct challenge to Chinese rule in Hong Kong. We spoke to BBC reporters Danny Vincent, who lives in Hong Kong and Helier Cheung who was brought up there. We also spoke to student leader Joshua Wong about what’s at stake. Produced by Duncan Barber and Philly Beaumont Mixed by Nicolaus Raufast Editor: John Shields
Jun 19, 2019•20 min
It’s almost a year since a Thai football team of 12 boys and their coach found themselves trapped for more than two weeks in the Tham Luang caves in northern Thailand. In a story that gripped the entire world, the rescue became a race against time to save the Wild Boars before heavy monsoon rains flooded the caves. The task was so complex and dangerous that it led to the death of one of the rescuers - Saman Gunan. British caver Vernon Unsworth knows the Tham Luang caves better than anyone and pl...
Jun 18, 2019•23 min
Young people in Liverpool are being offered hundreds of pounds by older gang leaders to stab each other. An investigation by Layla Wright for Beyond Today found that bounties are being used in knife attacks. We speak to Alan Walsh, an experienced youth worker in Merseyside who spoke to and recorded the teenagers. He says he was shocked by what he heard. Merseyside Police say they have no evidence that this is happening, but have urged anyone who knows about it to come forward. We also hear from ...
Jun 17, 2019•21 min
Michael Barbaro is the host of The New York Times’ podcast The Daily - a podcast that spends 20 minutes every day focussing on one big news story. Regular listeners of Beyond Today might find this familiar… And in truth without The Daily we might not exist: it was a blueprint for a new type of journalism, a revolution in how news is reported and covered. And The Daily started around about the same time as another revolution was taking place - the election of President Donald Trump. Here Michael ...
Jun 14, 2019•27 min
Botswana is home to the world’s largest population of elephants. And now you can hunt them. It’s a fascinating debate which pitches the moral question and knee-jerk reaction against killing endangered animals, against the economic and social reality of having more elephants than anywhere else on earth. Elephants can be very destructive when they encroach onto farmland and move through villages destroying crops and sometimes killing people. But conservationists are angry. They believe the move is...
Jun 13, 2019•19 min
72 people died in the Grenfell Tower fire two years ago this week. Since then the first part of a public inquiry has taken place looking at the events of that night. The next phase, which will investigate why the 24-storey tower was wrapped in combustible cladding, will start next year. Kate Lamble from the BBC Grenfell Inquiry podcast tells what we have learnt so far. We also speak to Gill Kernick, who used to live in Grenfell Tower and works in risk management. She tells us what should be done...
Jun 12, 2019•20 min
Charlie Brooker started his career writing video game reviews before he went on to become a TV critic. He’s written and presented two successful TV series, Screenwipe and Newswipe, which pulled apart the news and what we watch on TV. But he’s best known as being the creator and writer of the hugely successful Black Mirror series, which looks at our unease with technology and has attracted some huge names. Series 5 is no different: Miley Cyrus is part of the cast. Charlie Brooker came into the Be...
Jun 11, 2019•28 min
After Melania Geymonat and her girlfriend Chris were attacked on a London bus last week they chose to share the photo of the aftermath of the attack, and their story, with the world. They wanted people to understand something about what they and other lesbian couples face, not just violence but also the subtle ways in which their relationships are undermined and laughed about by men. On today’s episode Melania explains why she chose to go public about the horrific incident. And couple Bex Wilson...
Jun 10, 2019•16 min
James Bridle wants us to think about technology in a different way. His book ‘A New Dark Age’ is a slightly foreboding look at our relationship with the digital world, arguing that as it gets more complex our understanding of it diminishes. His work addresses a lot of the themes we talk about on Beyond Today and, as on a Friday we often like to take a step back from the news and hear from someone we’re interested in, we decided to grab him for a chat while he was over from his home in Greece. He...
Jun 07, 2019•20 min
There are lots of reasons you may want to take a DNA test. Perhaps you want to find out where in the world your DNA comes from or connect to relatives. But people don’t always know what they’re getting themselves into and some make shocking discoveries about their families. We speak to Rebekah Drumsta from the NPE Friends Fellowship, a charity which helps people come to terms with finding out that one of their parents isn’t a biological relative. DNA tests also raise questions about healthcare. ...
Jun 06, 2019•26 min
Helena Kornilova is a 29 year-old Russian model and biochemist. She’s also a blogger and Instagram influencer with 280,000 followers. She’s been in the news in Russia because she’s been exposed as a fraudster after recommending medical advice and, in particular, supplements to buy. But this isn’t just a Russian problem, influencers all over the world are selling products and giving health advice even though they are not qualified. We hear from Dr Jen Gunter, who describes herself as the fiercest...
Jun 05, 2019•17 min
China has ramped up efforts to prevent people from reading about the student protests of 1989 that ended in bloodshed when the government sent tanks into Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Activists have been arrested and censorship has been stepped up, with bans placed on English-speaking foreign media such as CNN and the BBC. We speak to the BBC’s longest serving foreign correspondent John Simpson, who was in Beijing in 1989. We also examine how the truth has been suppressed and what the government h...
Jun 04, 2019•19 min
Most of the President’s family flew in for a guided tour of London’s hotspots with the royals on the first day of their state visit to the UK. Protesters waved their banners and everyone waited for Trump to start tweeting. The President and First Lady Melania Trump went to Buckingham Palace for a private lunch and welcome ceremony. But could the Queen’s role be more than just ceremonial? Former presidential aide Mary Jo Jackobi and our royal correspondent Jonny Dymond tell us how she, and her ho...
Jun 03, 2019•20 min
Tomorrow night in Madrid Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur will face each other in the Champions League final, the pinnacle of the club game. With Chelsea having beaten Arsenal in Europe’s second tier competition the Europa League on Wednesday, it’s been a huge week for English football. And there’s even more to come. Next week the Women’s World Cup starts, where England are expected to do well, and the men’s team compete in the Nation’s League semi-finals on Thursday to add to their unexpected ru...
May 31, 2019•18 min
This week Malaysia ordered several thousand tonnes of imported plastic waste to be sent back to the countries it came from. The country’s government says it has become a dumping ground for wealthier nations and that much of the refuse has been imported illegally. Some of it is from the UK. We talk rubbish with comedian Phil Wang who was brought up in Malaysia and the BBC’s South East Asia correspondent Jonathan Head, who has been visiting waste recycling plants in Thailand. You can email the Bey...
May 30, 2019•19 min
Fortnite tends to make headlines because of how many people play it and how much money it makes, but it’s much more interesting than that. In this episode we explore how Fortnite’s founders have created a new way of experiencing the world that is up against Netflix, Facebook, Google and Amazon in the battle over how you spend your free time. You might not be a gamer, but the creators of Fortnite have a vision of the technology that is so ambitious there’s a chance you’re going to feel completely...
May 29, 2019•22 min
Last week Panorama went undercover inside a hospital for vulnerable adults and revealed patients being mocked, taunted and intimidated by abusive staff. In shocking footage, reporter Olivia Davies filmed patients with autism and learning disabilities being deliberately provoked by staff and regularly physically restrained by them. The investigation comes eight years after her colleague Joe Plomin exposed the scandal of abuse at Winterbourne View, another specialist hospital. Then, the government...
May 28, 2019•19 min
Theresa May says she’s resigning, making way for a new prime minister. But she’s leaving without Brexit being resolved. The new person in the job will have to continue to negotiate and with European Parliament elections taking place this weekend the leaders there will have their eye on the results. We speak to the BBC’s Europe Editor Katya Adler and Tanit Koch managing editor of n-tv in Berlin about the view from Europe and the new political forces likely to have influence there. Produced by Phi...
May 24, 2019•17 min
Jamie Oliver is one of the UK’s best-known chefs and restaurant owners. He’s had world wide success with his books, TV series, and campaigns, but this week it was announced that his restaurant company had gone into administration with the loss of 1,000 jobs. Since he came onto our screens 20 years ago with the Naked Chef series he’s had a huge impact on British food culture. To find out how we speak to the presenter of BBC Radio 4’s the Food Programme Sheila Dillon and two men whose careers he h...
May 23, 2019•20 min
A woman who changed her name to escape revenge porn has once again become a victim after finding images of herself on a website containing folders full of explicit images of women “from every city in the UK”. Some of the folders give away full names and locations of the women, but most of them do not even know that the website exists. We hear about Mikala Monsoon who waived her right to anonymity as a victim of crime because she wants the crime taken more seriously. BBC Scotland news reporter Co...
May 22, 2019•17 min
The Chinese company Huawei wants to be the biggest tech firm in the world. But this week the US tried to squash it by cutting Huawei off from Google’s Android operating system, meaning that users’ phones may no longer get security updates. It’s the latest move in an ongoing trade war between the US and China. So how much is this about phones, and how much is it about a battle for global supremacy? BBC Click’s Jen Copestake, Vincent Ni from the BBC Chinese Service and our Security Correspondent G...
May 21, 2019•19 min
On Friday the former BNP poster boy and 23 year-old convicted paedophile Jack Renshaw was sentenced to at least 20 years in prison for plotting to murder the Labour MP Rosie Cooper. Renshaw has been a hero to some racists, misogynists and anti-semites in the North West for a few years. We speak to Robbie Mullen, a former neo-nazi who risked his life to blow the whistle on Renshaw; Ruth Smeeth, the Labour MP who told Cooper about the plot, and the BBC’s Daniel De Simone, who covered the case, to ...
May 20, 2019•20 min
Every week it seems there’s an incident involving race that goes viral online. Last week it was Danny Baker’s exit from 5 live and the consequent tide of backlash. But it could have been any week and any number of views. One person who has dedicated her entire career to unpicking the language and culture of systemic racism is Reni Eddo-Lodge, who wrote the award winning ‘Why I’m No Longer Talking To White People About Race’. She came into the Beyond Today studio to talk about race and public sha...
May 17, 2019•19 min
This is the story of an Iraqi boy with a face scarred in a military attack, who was brought for treatment in Britain in 1992. Amar Kanim began a new life in rural Devon after he was separated from his family in Basra. Then 30 years later an extraordinary chain of events that began with a chance meeting at Exeter station changed his life once again. The BBC’s Jon Kay, Andy Alcroft and Alex Littlewood told us his story. Producer: Duncan Barber. Mixed by Nicolas Raufast. Editor: John Shields. You c...
May 16, 2019•21 min
This week the award-winning actress Felicity Huffman, who stars in Desperate Housewives pleaded guilty to fraudulently conspiring to win a college place for her daughter. The star is one of dozens of wealthy people, including Full House actress Lori Loughlan, who’ve been caught up in this scandal. We speak to Nada Tawfik and John Mervin from the BBC’s New York bureau about the case and Mitchell Stevens, associate professor of Education and Sociology at Stanford University about what it tells us ...
May 15, 2019•19 min
