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BBC World Service

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.

The Global Story

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

Are conspiracy theories America’s biggest export?

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.

The death of reading

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

Is the AI boom actually a bubble?

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

Nukes for nothing: The deal that broke Ukraine's trust

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

Can Apple cut ties with China?

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

Is social media dead?

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

The disgraced UK doctor behind autism misinformation

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.

Meeting settlers and Palestinians in the West Bank

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.

Is Trump looking for war with Venezuela?

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.

Is Trump looking for war with Venezuela?

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