Imagine waking up one morning to the sound of a helicopter overhead. You look out and see that packages are being dropped in front of the homes of everyone on your street. You race downstairs, and tear open your package. Inside? Exactly $10,000 in new bills. A gift of freshly-printed money from your government – no strings attached. What would you do? Economists hope you would go out and spend – and that your spending would help kick start the post-industrial economies which many fear are grindi...
Dec 08, 2015•23 min
In November the US Drug Enforcement Administration issued its Drug Threat Assessment. Mexican ‘transnational criminal organisations’, it said, are the primary suppliers of heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, and marijuana to the United States. Drugs – the DEA says – are killing 46,000 Americans a year. But between Mexico’s criminal enterprises, and their clients, is a vast expanse of difficult geography and an international border. So, how do cartels get drugs into the US? The Inquiry hears from s...
Dec 01, 2015•23 min
We first asked this question over a year ago. So far, the answer has been no. The attacks in Paris killed 129 people. The day before that 43 people died when suicide bombers hit Beirut. Nearly two weeks before that a Russian passenger jet exploded over Egypt, killing all 224 people on board. The group calling itself Islamic State has claimed responsibility for all these attacks. If true, in two weeks, they have killed almost 400 civilians, in places way beyond the areas they control in Syria and...
Nov 21, 2015•23 min
New research suggests plants might be capable of more than many of us might expect. Some – controversially – even describe plants as “intelligent”, or even “sentient”. So, this week, we’re asking: have we underestimated plants? Our expert witnesses include an academic studying how networks of trees communicate through what she describes as a “wood wide web”, and the pioneer who is using plants to develop robotics. (Photo: US-Fall-Shenandoah, Credit: Getty Images)
Nov 17, 2015•23 min
Syria’s cultural heritage is being attacked from all sides - the Assad regime, opportunistic looters, opposition forces, Islamic State fighters and even Russian air strikes. Ancient sites like Palmyra have been destroyed, and it is feared that hundreds of precious valuables have been smuggled out of the country to be sold on the international art market. Is it too late to save Syria’s antiquities? We speak to experts including the specialist trying to recover stolen items being sold on the globa...
Nov 10, 2015•23 min
Mohammed Akhlaq’s murder shocked India. A mob broke into his house last month and beat him to death. They believed a rumour that Mr Akhlaq, a Muslim, had broken a Hindu taboo by slaughtering a cow. We find out how the cow became such a political animal and look at whether Hindu nationalists are feeling bolder in today’s India. (Photo: An Indian woman sprinkles yoghurt paste onto a cow's forehead. Credit:Getty Images)
Nov 03, 2015•23 min
Rhinos are in trouble. The ancient Sumatran rhino has just been declared extinct in Malaysia, following the fate of black rhinos in West Africa in 2011. Central Africa's northern white rhino has been reduced to four - yes, four - animals, and conservationists say the more plentiful southern white rhinos are under unprecedented attack from poachers eager to sell the horns to Asian and Arab buyers. This week The Inquiry hears four very different answers to the question: How do you save the rhino? ...
Oct 27, 2015•23 min
Oil accounts for around 75% of Nigeria’s economy, but no-one knows how much the country produces or refines. It means corruption is rife. Hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil are stolen every day, at each level of the supply chain. It is a problem that has cost the Nigerian economy billions of dollars, and weakened its public services and infrastructure. Schools and hospitals are paid for, but never built; citizens are forced to pay bribes for basic services. Many believe Nigeria’s new presid...
Oct 20, 2015•23 min
Russia’s intervention in Syria caught the world by surprise. Moscow gave Washington just one hour’s notice before it began its aerial bombardment. Russia claims its jets are attacking the so-called Islamic State. But reports suggest the Russian pilots are in fact targeting groups linked to the Free Syrian Army - the main opposition to Syria’s President Assad, who is a Russian ally. It is the first time President Putin has deployed force beyond the borders of the former USSR and another dramatic ...
Oct 13, 2015•23 min
The CIA has just released 2,500 top secret presidential briefings from the 1960s. The President’s Daily Brief – or PDB – is the US intelligence agencies’ best assessment of global threats, delivered directly to the president every morning. The CIA’s director, John Brennan, has described the PDB as “among the most sensitive and classified documents in all of our government”. The decision to release some PDBs, even documents relating to events many decades ago, was not taken lightly. And, the brie...
Oct 06, 2015•23 min
The United States, UK, Israel and now Pakistan all use drone strikes to kill. In September a general in the Pakistani army announced their first ever use of an armed drone. It was directed at a terrorist compound, he said, and killed three. Meanwhile the US is thought to have launched a secret drone campaign to kill so-called Islamic State fighters in Syria. Armed drones are the counter-terrorism weapon of choice, capable of killing militants from a distance and without putting military personne...
Sep 29, 2015•23 min
Japan is a pacifist country - at least that is what its constitution says. The wording, introduced under the occupying forces after World War Two, seems unequivocal: “the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation”. But new laws championed by conservative prime minister Shinzo Abe introduce a broader interpretation of what the constitution does, and does not, permit. Abe calls it “proactive pacifism”. Opponents say the laws are “war bills”, betraying the pacifism tha...
Sep 22, 2015•23 min
Tens of thousands of people have marched in Buenos Aires and elsewhere in outrage at the astonishing frequency with which women are being killed in Argentina - the vast majority at the hands of their partners or former partners. Violence directed at women and girls is at the extreme end of the scale. But the protesters believe it grows out of the 'machista' culture - where men have to be macho, and women have to do as they are told. In many ways, Argentina is not a special case - we could, perha...
Sep 15, 2015•23 min
The UN forecasts that the number of people living in Africa will double in the next 35 years. Nigeria, the fastest-growing nation, is expected to become the third largest country in the world by 2050. By the end of the century, almost 40% of the world’s population will live on this one continent. It raises questions about how countries – some of which are already facing big challenges – will cope with twice the number of inhabitants in just one generation. There are fears about the impact a demo...
Sep 07, 2015•23 min
In 2011, following a devastating tsunami, Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power station went into meltdown, leaking radiation. It was the most serious nuclear accident since Chernobyl. It appeared to send the nuclear power industry into retreat – and not just in Japan. Other nations had second thoughts too. Germany decided to phase out its nuclear reactors altogether. But now Japan has resumed nuclear power generation. At the heart of the 'nuclear wobble' of 2011 is the question of risk. Attitudes to,...
Sep 01, 2015•23 min
Tens of thousands of migrants continue to queue at the borders of the European Union in search of a better life. Their journeys are often hazardous and thousands have drowned in the Mediterranean trying to reach Italy or Greece. Attempts to share the burden among EU member states have been dogged by internal politics. And Europe’s actions so far have focussed on deterrence despite little evidence that such a strategy will work. So, in this week’s Inquiry, we’re asking what else Europe could try ...
Aug 25, 2015•23 min
Robots are coming for your job. Blue-collar jobs in industries like manufacturing have been disappearing for years but now white-collar work is under threat too. Machines are already taking roles that used to be done by journalists, lawyers and even anaesthetists. One recent study calculated that 47% of total employment in the US is at risk of automation in the next 20 years. So what will happen to all the human beings who did those jobs? Will we invent enough new jobs to keep them occupied? If ...
Aug 18, 2015•23 min
In June last year the world's attention became fixed on the progress of so-called Islamic State, or IS. They had just captured Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city. Since then a reported 20,000 fighters from all over the world have joined them. They have killed and enslaved thousands. They have captured towns, oil fields and dams. They control vast swathes of Iraq and Syria. IS are more brutal, sophisticated and enduring than anyone could have predicted. We test the argument that stopping IS will u...
Aug 11, 2015•23 min
This July, it was reported that a woman from Washington State in the US had died of measles. It was the first measles death in the country in 12 years and comes after a huge spike in the number of cases of the disease. There is little doubt about what has caused the rise. The 'anti-vax' movement – activists who refuse vaccines believing them to be harmful to children – is vocal, vibrant and virulent. But with their claims proven time and again to be without any scientific basis, why are the 'ant...
Aug 04, 2015•23 min
In 2009, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown declared “the beginning of the end” for off-shore tax havens. Since then, the EU, the G20, President Obama and others have lined up to criticise them. And yet they arre still with us. Tim Whewell asks why tax havens continue to exist, and whether tax havens are really to blame for tax avoidance in the first place. (Photo: Island in the Seychelles. Credit: Shutterstock)
Jul 28, 2015•23 min
China's economy was up 150% until June. Then it fell by nearly a third. Now it has had the strongest two-day rise since the 2008 global crisis. China’s rollercoaster stock market has provoked panic in recent weeks; panic on the part of small investors, who looked on in horror as previous gains were wiped out, and panic – some would argue – on the part of the Chinese government, which did everything it could to stop the slide. Four expert witnesses analyse what these dramatic events tell us – not...
Jul 21, 2015•23 min
Streaming has transformed the way millions listen to music. Whether signed up to Spotify, Apple Music or others, music lovers can access tens of millions of tracks instantly and for the monthly cost of one CD. But is this spectacular transformation good for music? Though streaming surely helps artists find new audiences, do those artists get rewarded fairly? And has having a ‘global jukebox’ at our fingertips changed our relationship to music itself? (Photo: Lucy Rose)
Jul 14, 2015•23 min
The global effort to prevent athletes using performance-enhancing drugs is vast and sophisticated. You might think, in this era of advanced testing, it would be almost impossible to cheat and get away with it. But is that really the case? Alberto Salazar, one of the world’s most successful coaches, has been accused of encouraging his athletes to dope. Salazar strongly denies the allegations. But the story has reignited concerns that, despite the efforts of the anti-doping authorities, cheating i...
Jul 07, 2015•23 min
The global financial crisis reignited an old debate - is it better to cut spending and raise taxes in an economic downturn, or spend your way out of it? After a period of relative consensus up to 2010, some countries inclined more to austerity (cuts and tax rises), some against. In this edition of The Inquiry we examine whether we now have the evidence to settle this important economic argument. (Photo: Anti-austerity demonstration. Credit: Zak Kaczmarek/Getty Images)
Jun 30, 2015•23 min
Despite the tense and increasingly bitter negotiations between Greece and its European creditors - who the Greek government accuse of demanding intolerable austerity – most Greek people want their country to stay in the euro currency union. But there are some, including within the governing Syriza party, who think Greece might ultimately be better off going it alone, and returning to the drachma. There would be serious pain, no doubt. But, in the longer term, might Greece be better off out of th...
Jun 23, 2015•23 min
Fifteen years ago, manned space flight was still a dream for China. Now, they are looking to the moon. They have mastered space walking, they are building advanced scientific satellites in partnership with the European Space Agency, and they are constructing their own ‘heavenly palace’ – a space station to rival the ISS. But some, not least the United States, are concerned by possible military uses for China’s blossoming space technology. This week our four expert witnesses help us figure out wh...
Jun 16, 2015•23 min
Shocking images have brought the Rohingya to the world’s attention - boatloads of people drifting aimlessly on the Indian ocean, sustained by bottles of water thrown to them by visiting journalists. The Rohingya are Muslims from western Myanmar – or Burma – who live a life of poverty and exclusion. The government refuses even to recognise their ethnicity. Hoping for better lives in Malaysia, they turned to people smugglers and leaky boats. Will anyone help the Rohingya, one of the most marginali...
Jun 08, 2015•23 min
Ask a scientist, and they will almost certainly tell you genetically modified food is safe to eat. Yet an awful lot of consumers disagree. Is their fear of GM food irrational? Earlier this year the Pew Foundation released a US poll which suggested 88% of scientists think GM food is generally safe to eat, while only 37% of the public agree. It is the issue on which American scientists and the general public are most divided, more so than climate change or vaccines. If the scientific consensus say...
Jun 02, 2015•23 min
Fifa has been described as a “totalitarian” set-up “beyond ridicule” with a leadership “incapable of reform or cultural change”. A corruption report is said to have contained “numerous materially incomplete and erroneous representations”. Many have argued that world football’s governing body is badly in need of reform. So, as Fifa prepares to elect its next president, our question this week: who can fix FIfa? Sponsors and broadcasters provide the vast majority of the body’s income. Could they fo...
May 22, 2015•23 min
Recent high profile cases of unarmed black men dying at the hands of the US police have sparked outrage, protests and civil unrest in several American cities. The deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Walter Scott and Freddie Gray are – some claim – evidence of long-standing problems with police racism and excessive violence. But what do we really know about what’s happening? Our expert witnesses this week explain the issues of racism, bias and police use of force. And the head of President Obam...
May 19, 2015•23 min
