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PODCAST

The Conversation Weekly

The Conversation

A show for curious minds, from The Conversation. Each week, host Gemma Ware speaks to an academic expert about a topic in the news to understand how we got here.

news news commentary

All Episodes

28:52

Israel’s history shapes how it wages war

The Conversation Weekly ·

2026/04/23

In around ten minutes on April 8, the Israeli military hit more than 100 targets across Lebanon. Israel called the attack Operation Eternal Darkness and said it struck Hezbollah command and control centres. The Lebanese government said at least 300 people were killed and 1,000 injured.Israel has a powerful and lethal army, and it’s been defending itself against attacks from Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran. But why has it chosen such brutal military aggression?One historian, Yaron Peleg, believes the

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31:05

How former insider Péter Magyar ousted Hungary’s...

The Conversation Weekly ·

2026/04/16

For 16 years, Viktor Orbán built an illiberal democracy in Hungary. Orbán and his Fidesz party managed to take control of many of Hungary's levers of power, from the judiciary to state-owned media, and weakened the institutions that could keep them accountable. Now, his regime has been ended by a former Fidesz insider, Péter Magyar, who managed to unite Hungarians to secure a two-third majority in the country's parliament.So how did Peter Magyar manage to beat his former boss? And what does Magyar's

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30:23

The pseudoscientific scale looksmaxxers use to rate...

The Conversation Weekly ·

2026/04/09

If you have teenagers in your life, they’ll probably have heard of the PSL scale. Or at least the language associated with it. Chad. Stacy. Normie. Subhuman.The PSL scale is a pseudoscientific attractiveness rating system used by looksmaxxers, men in a part of the manosphere who can go to extreme methods to change their appearance.The roots of this rating system lie in misogynistic online forums used by incels or involuntarily celibates, but now it’s all over social media. So how did the language of

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26:05

The Making of One Nation: the unlikely rise of...

The Conversation Weekly ·

2026/04/02

From a fish and chip shop in regional Queensland to the heart of Australian politics: this is the unlikely story of One Nation, Australia's most controversial minor party.For thirty years, One Nation and Pauline Hanson have been ridiculed, dismissed and shut out. Now, no one is laughing. This week we're running the first episode of The Making of One Nation, a new series from The Conversation hosted by Ashlynne McGhee. She explores how a party built on fear and grievance thrived, died and rose again

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27:21

Artemis II: NASA’s long road back to the Moon

The Conversation Weekly ·

2026/03/26

FinalpreparationsareunderwayforNASA’sArtemisIImission,thefirstcrewedmissionaroundtheMoonformorethan50years.Fourastronauts,threemenandonewoman,willspend10daysaboardtheOrionspacecraft,goingfurtherintospacethananyotherhumansastheyorbittheMoonandreturntoEarth.ThemissionisthenextstepoftheArtemisprogramme,whichplanstolandastronautsbacktotheMoonby2028.Chinahasitsownprogrammetargetingafullcrewedmissiontothelunarsurfaceby2030.Inthisepisode,wespeaktoScottPace,directoroftheSpacePolicyInstituteatGeorgeWashington

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28:28

How the US cloned Iran's drones

The Conversation Weekly ·

2026/03/19

The day after the US began bombing Iran, US Central Command confirmed it had used a new, cheap type of kamikaze drone called a Lucas for the first time in a combat operation. These drones were made in America, but their roots actually lie in Iran – they are reverse engineered copies of an Iranian drone called a Shahed that the Russians have also been using to bomb Ukraine.In this episode, PhD researcher and military expert Arun Dawson at King's College London explains how the Iranians developed the

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23:11

Mystery covid methane spike solved

The Conversation Weekly ·

2026/03/12

Six years ago, as countries around the world went into COVID lockdowns, the air got cleaner. Factories slowed down, roads emptied and aeroplanes were grounded. As people stayed home, the world burned fewer fossil fuels and so carbon dioxide emissions dropped.But something else was also happening in the atmosphere. Levels of methane, an extremely potent greenhouse gas that warms the planet even faster than CO2, rose faster in 2020 than at any point since records began in the 1980s. And methane levels

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28:40

Was the Gulf blindsided on Iran?

The Conversation Weekly ·

2026/03/05

As Israel and the US continued to bomb Iran after killing the country's supreme leader Ali Khamenei, Iran lashed out at its neighbours with multiple drone strikes, including against the US embassy in Riyadh.Saudi Arabia and Iran have a long and bitter rivalry. Yet, in recent years, the Saudis had begun building new diplomatic relationship with Iran, even as they and other Gulf states continued to host American military bases, and court American investment.Now the Gulf states find themselves in the

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28:29

South Korea's birth rate is rising, but the...

The Conversation Weekly ·

2026/02/26

South Korea’s very low birth rate and ageing population have long served as a cautionary tale for other governments worried that they’ll see similar demographic challenges.But now, for the second year running, more people in South Korea are having children. The 6.8% rise in births in 2025 is the largest rise since 2007, and has taken the country’s total fertility rate to 0.80, up from 0.75 in 2024. The news is being cautiously celebrated, but with South Korea’s overall population still shrinking, it

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24:17

The 'national humiliation' behind Russia's war on...

The Conversation Weekly ·

2026/02/19

As the 21st century dawned, a newly-elected Vladmir Putin was making friends on the world stage. He smiled for photo ops at G8 meetings, and was the first foreign leader to call George W. Bush after the attacks of 9/11, offering his support against terrorism.So what changed? To understand Russia's view of the world now – and its continued aggression towards Ukraine – it helps to know more about the psyche of the country and its leader.In today's episode, we talk to James Rodgers, a reader in

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25:03

How Minneapolis is organising against ICE

The Conversation Weekly ·

2026/02/12

Whenever federal immigration agents pull up to a location in Minneapolis, people take their whistles out, start blowing them and start filming.In December, US government sent more than 2,000 Immigration and Customs and Enforcement (ICE) agents into Minnesota in December as part of Operation Metro Surge. The residents of the metropolitan area known as the Twin Cities – Minneapolis and St. Paul – quickly came together to protect and support their neighbours at risk of being caught up in ICE raids.In

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24:44

The Super Bowl that kickstarted prop betting in America

The Conversation Weekly ·

2026/02/05

Super Bowl Sunday is the biggest night in American sports. A popular destination to watch – and bet – on the Super Bowl is Las Vegas, Nevada.And it was in Las Vegas, ahead of the 1986 Super Bowl between the Chicago Bears and the New England Patriots, that one enterprising casino would kickstart a new direction in American sports gambling: prop betting. It offered odds not just on the result of the game, but on the outcome of an individual event within it – whether one defensive player called William

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29:19

How Iran shut down the internet

The Conversation Weekly ·

2026/01/29

On January 8, as thousands of Iranians took to the streets in nationwide protests, the government cut off the internet. Under cover of digital darkness, the Iranian regime launched a brutal and deadly crackdown against anti-government protesters.After three weeks of internet blackout, reports from web traffic monitor Netblocks suggest that the internet is slowly coming back online but predominantly for government-approved users.Yet for most of the shutdown, banks and some local government websites

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29:29

A lost US military base under Greenland's ice sheet

The Conversation Weekly ·

2026/01/22

In the summer of 1959, a group of American soldiers began carving trenches in the Greenland ice sheet. Those trenches would become the snow covered tunnels of Camp Century, a secret Arctic research base powered by a nuclear reactor.Camp Century operated for six years, during which time the scientists based there managed to drilling a mile down to collect a unique set of ice cores. But by 1966, it had been abandoned, deemed too expensive and difficult to maintain.Today, Donald Trump’s territorial

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23:05

A new treaty to protect our oceans

The Conversation Weekly ·

2026/01/15

In a moment being celebrated by global marine conservationists, a new UN high seas treaty comes into force on January 17 providing a new way to govern the world's oceans.The UN high seas treaty will allow for the creation of protected areas in international waters, like national parks. But the treaty has some grey areas – notably its powers to regulating fishing in international waters, and mining of the seabed.In this episode we speak to Callum Roberts, professor of marine conservation at the

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18:29

The Making of an Autocrat: co-opt the military

The Conversation Weekly ·

2026/01/04

In November, six Democratic lawmakers recorded a video directed at members of the US military and intelligence agencies. In it, they issued a blunt reminder:"The laws are clear: you can refuse illegal orders. […] You must refuse illegal orders."The lawmakers were issuing the warning against the backdrop of US airstrikes on boats off the coast of Latin America the Trump administration claims are suspected drug runners. Many Democrats and legal experts, however, argue these strikes are illegal.Since

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15:06

The Making of an Autocrat: suppress the people

The Conversation Weekly ·

2026/01/04

The list of people Donald Trump has punished or threatened to punish since returning to office is long. It includes the likes of James Comey, Letitia James, John Bolton, as well as members of the opposition, such as Adam Schiff, Mark Kelly and Kamala Harris.In fact, he has gone so far as to call Democrats “the enemy from within”, saying they are more dangerous than US adversaries like Russia and China.According to Lucan Way, a professor of democracy at the University of Toronto, when a leader

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17:11

The Making of an Autocrat: beat the courts

The Conversation Weekly ·

2025/12/28

In democratic systems, the courts are a vital check on a leader’s power. They have the ability to overturn laws and, in Donald Trump’s case, the executive orders he has relied on to achieve his goals.Since taking office, Trump has targeted the judiciary with a vengeance. He has attacked what he has called “radical left judges” and is accused of ignoring or evading court orders.The Supreme Court has already handed the Trump administration some key wins in his second term. But several cases now before

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14:26

The Making of an Autocrat: manufacture a crisis

The Conversation Weekly ·

2025/12/28

Donald Trump has sounded the alarm, over and over again, that the United States is facing an “invasion” by dangerous gang members. He blames immigrants for the country’s economic problems and claims protesters are destroying US cities.Trump is not the first would-be autocrat to manufacture a crisis to seize extraordinary powers.As Natasha Lindstaedt, an expert in authoritarian regimes at the University of Essex, says in episode 3 of The Making of an Autocrat, a strongman “loves a crisis”."A crisis

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16:11

The Making of an Autocrat: recruit an architect

The Conversation Weekly ·

2025/12/28

Every autocrat needs a clan of loyalists, strategists, masterminds – these are the figures behind the scenes pulling the strings.They’re unelected and unaccountable, yet they wield a huge amount of power.This is the role Stephen Miller has played for Donald Trump – he is the architect in chief for the second Trump administration. He has so much power, in fact, he’s reportedly referred to as the "prime minister."So who is Stephen Miller? And why are architects so important in helping a would-be

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274 results

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