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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.

The Conversation Weekly

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 kept on rising during 2021 and 2022.

Ever since, scientists have been trying to piece together what caused this sudden mysterious increase in methane. Now, they think they have the answer – and it was partly due to COVID lockdowns.

In this episode, we speak to Philippe Ciais, a researcher at the Laboratory for Environmental and Climate Science at Université Paris-Saclay in France, and one of the authors of a new study in the journal Science about the spike in methane levels, who explains how they solved the mystery.

This episode was written and produced by Mend Mariwany and Katie Flood and Gemma Ware was the executive producer. Mixing by Eleanor Brezzi and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Read the full credits for this episode and sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.

If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.

Mentioned in this episode:

The Making of an Autocrat

Search "The Conversation Weekly" for our new series: The Making of an Autocrat.
Is America watching its democracy unravel in real time? In The Making of an Autocrat from The Conversation, six of the world’s pre-eminant scholars reveal the recipe for authoritarian rule. From capturing a party, to controlling the military, Donald Trump is borrowing from the playbook of strongmen thoughout history. This is the story of how democracies falter — and what might happen next.

Mystery covid methane spike solved

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 middle of the very regional conflict many of its leaders hoped to avoid. It's one which threatens longstanding efforts to cement the Gulf as a hub for finance, travel and tourism, and as an oasis of security.

Were they blindsided? Or did some actually want the US to attack Iran? With the US and Israel seemingly calling the shots, what will the Gulf states do now?

In today's episode, we speak to Simon Mabon, a professor of international relations at Lancaster University in the UK and expert in Saudi-Iran relations, about how the Gulf's delicate balancing act between the US and Iran came toppling down.

This episode was written and produced by Mend Mariwany and Katie Flood. The executive producers was Gemma Ware. Mixing by Eleanor Brezzi and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Read the full credits for this episode and sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.

If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.

Mentioned in this episode:

The Making of an Autocrat

Search "The Conversation Weekly" for our new series: The Making of an Autocrat.
Is America watching its democracy unravel in real time? In The Making of an Autocrat from The Conversation, six of the world’s pre-eminant scholars reveal the recipe for authoritarian rule. From capturing a party, to controlling the military, Donald Trump is borrowing from the playbook of strongmen thoughout history. This is the story of how democracies falter — and what might happen next.

Was the Gulf blindsided on Iran?

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 is yet to reverse its demographic fortunes.

In this episode, we speak to Stuart Gietel-Basten, a demographer and professor of social science and public policy at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, about how South Korea has got to this point and some of the structural issues the country still faces.

This episode was written and produced by Gemma Ware and Katie Flood. Mixing by Eleanor Brezzi and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Read the full credits for this episode and sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.

If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.

Japan is not the only country worrying about population decline – get used to a two-speed worldChina’s population decline is a result of decades of botched family planning measures and will have global implicationsSouth Korea’s gender imbalance is bad news for men − outnumbering women, many face bleak marriage prospects

Mentioned in this episode:

The Making of an Autocrat

Search "The Conversation Weekly" for our new series: The Making of an Autocrat.
Is America watching its democracy unravel in real time? In The Making of an Autocrat from The Conversation, six of the world’s pre-eminant scholars reveal the recipe for authoritarian rule. From capturing a party, to controlling the military, Donald Trump is borrowing from the playbook of strongmen thoughout history. This is the story of how democracies falter — and what might happen next.

South Korea's birth rate is rising, but the population is still shrinking

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 international journalism at City St George's, University of London, about how a festering sense of national humiliation after the collapse of the Soviet Union hardened Putin's tough man regime and led Russia to turn its back on the west.

This episode was written and produced by Mend Mariwany and Gemma Ware with editing help from Ashlynne McGhee. Mixing by Michelle Macklem and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Read the full credits for this episode and sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.

If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.

Vladimir Putin’s history war where truth is the first casualtyThe painful post-Soviet transition from communism to capitalism – Recovery podcast series part fiveIn pushing for Ukraine elections, Trump is falling into Putin-laid trap to delegitimize Zelenskyy

Mentioned in this episode:

The Making of an Autocrat

Search "The Conversation Weekly" for our new series: The Making of an Autocrat.
Is America watching its democracy unravel in real time? In The Making of an Autocrat from The Conversation, six of the world’s pre-eminant scholars reveal the recipe for authoritarian rule. From capturing a party, to controlling the military, Donald Trump is borrowing from the playbook of strongmen thoughout history. This is the story of how democracies falter — and what might happen next.

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

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 this episode, we speak to Daniel Cueto-Villalobos, a doctoral candidate at the University of Minnesota, who lives in southern Minneapolis and studies race, religion and social movements. He tracks the neighbourhood groups that have sprung into action in response to the ICE presence back to mutual networks set up during the 2020 Covid pandemic and in the wake of the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis policeman.

This episode was written and produced by Katie Flood with editing help from Mend Mariwany. The executive producer is Gemma Ware. Mixing by Michelle Macklem and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Read the full credits for this episode and sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.

If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.

I’m a former FBI agent who studies policing, and here’s how federal agents in Minneapolis are undermining basic law enforcement principlesFrom Colonial rebels to Minneapolis protesters, technology has long powered American social movementsMinnesota raises unprecedented constitutional issues in its lawsuit against Trump administration anti-immigrant deploymentThe contradictions of ‘Minnesota nice’

Mentioned in this episode:

The Making of an Autocrat

Search "The Conversation Weekly" for our new series: The Making of an Autocrat.
Is America watching its democracy unravel in real time? In The Making of an Autocrat from The Conversation, six of the world’s pre-eminant scholars reveal the recipe for authoritarian rule. From capturing a party, to controlling the military, Donald Trump is borrowing from the playbook of strongmen thoughout history. This is the story of how democracies falter — and what might happen next.

How Minneapolis is organising against ICE

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 Perry, nicknamed The Refrigerator, would score a touchdown.

Today, as American sports face multiple gambling scandals, we speak to John Affleck, Knight Chair in sports journalism and society at Penn State, about that 1986 Super Bowl, the history of prop betting, and why he believes its explosion is threatening the integrity of professional sports in the US.

This episode was written and produced by Katie Flood with editing help from Mend Mariwany. The executive producer is Gemma Ware. Mixing by Michelle Macklem and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Read the full credits for this episode and sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.

If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.

Watch the Super Bowl Shuffle by the Chicago BearsSupreme Court delivers a home run for sports bettors – and now states need to scrambleBad Bunny’s Super Bowl show is part of long play drawn up by NFL to score with Latin AmericaHow the explosion of prop betting threatens the integrity of pro sports

The Super Bowl that kickstarted prop betting in America

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 and apps still worked. And that’s because Iran is developing its own, national internet, cut off from the rest of the world.

In this episode, we speak to Amin Naeni, a PhD candidate researching digital authoritarianism at Deakin University in Australia, about how Iran built one of the world’s most sophisticated systems of digital control.

This episode was written and produced by Mend Mariwany and Gemma Ware with editing help from Katie Flood. Mixing by Michelle Macklem and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Read the full credits for this episode and sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.

If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.

Iran’s universities have long been a battleground, where protests happen and students fight for the futureIran’s biggest centres of protest are also experiencing extreme pollution and water shortagesThis is the playbook the Iranian regime uses to crack down on protests – but will it work this time?Why Iran can’t afford to shut down the internet forever – even if the world doesn’t actIran’s latest internet blackout extends to phones and Starlink

Mentioned in this episode:

The Making of an Autocrat

Search "The Conversation Weekly" for our new series: The Making of an Autocrat.
Is America watching its democracy unravel in real time? In The Making of an Autocrat from The Conversation, six of the world’s pre-eminant scholars reveal the recipe for authoritarian rule. From capturing a party, to controlling the military, Donald Trump is borrowing from the playbook of strongmen thoughout history. This is the story of how democracies falter — and what might happen next.

How Iran shut down the internet

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 ambitions for Greenland continue to cause concern and confusion in Europe, particularly for Denmark and Greenlanders themselves who insist their island is not for sale.

One of the attractions of Greenland is the gleam of its rich mineral wealth, particularly rare earth minerals. Now that Greenland’s ice sheet is melting due to global warming, will this make the mineral riches easier to get at?

In this episode, we talk to Paul Bierman, a geologist and expert on Greenland’s ice at the University of Vermont in US. He explains why the history of what happened to Camp Century – and the secrets of its ice cores, misplaced for decades, but now back under the microscope – help us to understand why it’s not that simple.

This episode was written and produced by Mend Mariwany and Gemma Ware with editing help from Katie Flood. Mixing by Michelle Macklem and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Read the full credits for this episode and sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.

If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.

Why Greenland is indispensable to global climate scienceGreenland is rich in natural resources – a geologist explains whyGreenland: Staying with the Polar Inuit. How a secret military base helped trigger the silent collapse of an Arctic worldThe US military has cared about climate change since the dawn of the Cold War – for good reason

Mentioned in this episode:

The Making of an Autocrat

Search "The Conversation Weekly" for our new series: The Making of an Autocrat.
Is America watching its democracy unravel in real time? In The Making of an Autocrat from The Conversation, six of the world’s pre-eminant scholars reveal the recipe for authoritarian rule. From capturing a party, to controlling the military, Donald Trump is borrowing from the playbook of strongmen thoughout history. This is the story of how democracies falter — and what might happen next.

A lost US military base under Greenland's ice sheet

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 University of Exeter in the UK, about how the treaty came to be and the challenges now facing its implementation.

This episode was written and produced by Mend Mariwany and Gemma Ware. Mixing by Michelle Macklem and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Read the full credits for this episode and sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.

If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.

Global power struggles over the ocean’s finite resources call for creative diplomacyTargets to save 30% of the ocean by 2030 aren’t being met, new report revealsThe historic High Seas Treaty is almost reality. Here’s what it would mean for ocean conservationA landmark treaty could protect the high seas – and spark new conflicts

A new treaty to protect our oceans

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 returning to office, Trump has successfully expanded his power over his own party, the courts and the American people. Now, like many autocrats around the world, he’s trying to exert control over the military.

In the final episode of The Making of an Autocrat, Joe Wright, a political science professor at Penn State University, says:

"I am very concerned that getting the military to do illegal things will not only put US soldiers at more risk when they do engage in international missions in the future […] it’s a first step to using the military to target domestic political opponents. That’s what really worries me."

This episode was written by Justin Bergman and produced and edited by Isabella Podwinski and Ashlynne McGhee. Sound design by Michelle Macklem.

South Korea's birth rate is rising, but the population is still shrinking

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