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BBC World Service

The Inquiry gets beyond the headlines to explore the trends, forces and ideas shaping the world.

The Inquiry

When Chancellor Olaf Scholz fired his finance minister, Christian Lindner last month, Germany’s ‘traffic light’ government collapsed, an uneasy coalition between parties with differing perspectives and strained relations, the Social Democrats, the Greens and the Free Democrats.

At the heart of the political dispute lie deeply opposing views about spending plans, and how to fund much needed investment in infrastructure projects such as transport, education, green energy and digital technology, in order to boost Germany’s international competitiveness.

Falling demand both domestically and overseas for manufacturing goods, the pandemic, war in Ukraine and high energy costs have weakened Germany’s economy. So how can Germany reinvigorate its exports and economic growth? On this episode of The Inquiry, we’re asking: Does Germany need to reinvent itself? 

Contributors
Michaela Kuefner, Chief Political Editor, DW Deutsche Welle.
Marcel Fratzscher, President, German Institute for Economic Research & Professor of Macroeconomics, Humboldt University.
Julian Hinz, Professor of International Economics, Bielefeld University & Director, Trade Policy Research Group, Kiel Institute for the World Economy.
Monika Schnitzer of Economics & Chairwoman of the German Council of Economic Experts.

Presenter: Tanya Beckett
Production: Diane Richardson and Matt Toulson
Production Co-ordinator: Liam Morrey
Technical Producer: Matthew Dempsey
Editor: Tara McDermott

Image credit - Reuters via BBC Images

Does Germany need to reinvent itself?

Accusations of sabotage have been made after a Chinese merchant ship cut through two important undersea cables in the Baltic Sea. Eight of the nine states in the Baltic are members of Nato but Russia has access to the sea from St Petersburg and for its Kaliningrad exclave. 

With previous incidents of damage to underwater pipelines and cables, there is concern that the security of critical underwater infrastructure is at risk from ‘grey zone’ activities - damaging but deniable incidents below the level of outright war. 

David Baker hears how countries’ security is threatened by incidents like these. The pipelines that were cut ran between Finland and Germany and Sweden and Lithuania. He asks who can intervene to protect these assets in the Baltic. Can Nato respond?

Our experts this week are: Elizabeth Braw, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council Scowcroft Centre for Strategy and Security, and the author of an upcoming book called The Undersea War; Helga Kalm, director of the Lennart Meri Conference in Tallinn, Estonia; Marion Messmer, senior research fellow in the International Security Programme at Chatham House; Tormod Heier, professor at the National Defence University College in Oslo, Norway and a former officer in the Norwegian Intelligence Service.

Presenter: David Baker
Producer: Philip Reevell
Researcher: Katie Morgan
Editor: Tara McDermott
Sound engineer: Craig Boardman

Image Credit - Rex/Shutterstock via BBC Images

Can Nato protect the Baltic Sea?

The Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan, sandwiched between China and India, is perhaps best known around the globe for its unconventional measure of national development: Gross National Happiness. The concept was introduced back in 1972 by the fourth King of Bhutan, Jigme Singye Wangchuck. It assesses the country’s overall wellbeing on the basis of sustainable and equitable socio-economic development; environmental conservation; preservation and promotion of culture; and good governance. 

But the Bhutanese are now finding that their cautious approach to balancing economic growth with the well-being of their citizens, is proving difficult to sustain in light of mounting economic problems. The country which has a population of less than 800,000, is experiencing high levels of youth unemployment and many young people and skilled workers are leaving for countries like Australia and Canada. 

To try and counter this brain drain and to attract new investment into the country to help the economy grow, Bhutan has plans to create a ‘Mindfulness City’. This multi-million dollar project is being spearheaded by the current monarch. At its core will be a scaled up, less cautious version of Bhutan’s key concept, which the Bhutanese Prime Minister has called Gross National Happiness 2.0. 

So on this week’s Inquiry we’re asking ‘Can Bhutan retain its happiness?’ 

Contributors: 
Dr Ha Vinh Tho, Founder and President, Eurasia Learning Institute for Happiness and Well-Being, Switzerland.

Dr Rishi Gupta, Assistant Director, Asia Society Policy Institute, New Delhi, India

Dr Lhawang Ugyel, Senior Lecturer, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.

Jan Eeckhout, Professor of Economics, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain

Presenter: Charmaine Cozier 
Producer: Jill Collins 
Researcher: Matt Toulson 
Editor: Tara McDermott 
Technical Producer: James Bradshaw 
Production Co-ordinator: Tim Fernley and Liam Morrey

Can Bhutan retain its happiness?

Robert F Kennedy Jr, nephew of America's 35th President, John F. Kennedy, has been nominated to be the next US health secretary by President-elect Donald Trump. The post oversees everything from medical research to food safety and public welfare programmes. 

Kennedy has been the face of “Make America Healthy Again”, a movement dedicated to “public health, sustainable practices and a government that truly serves the people”.

This week of The Inquiry, we look at how MAHA wants to tackle chronic disease, in particular obesity. Will RFK carry these ideas into public office? How will food corporations and colleagues in the US Congress react? How feasible is it for the US Health Secretary to shift the dial on healthy eating?

Contributors:
Bill Dietz, Director of the Stop Obesity Alliance at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., US
Matthew Bartlett, a Republican strategist and former Trump State Department official, US
Professor Jerold Mande, CEO of Nourish Science, US
Professor Colleen Heflin, Professor of public administration and international affairs at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, US

Production Team:
Presenter: Charmaine Cozier
Producers: Vicky Carter and Matt Toulson
Production Co-ordinator: Liam Morrey
Technical producer: Richard Hannaford
Editor: Tara McDermott

Photo Credit: Bloomberg via GettyImages

Can RFK Jnr ‘make America healthy again?’

Cancer is a disease that will affect 1 in 5 people in our lifetime, and it’s estimated that around 20 million people worldwide will be diagnosed with some form of cancer in 2025.

But how might a vaccine help in the treatment of cancer?

Numerous trials began testing the viability of cancer vaccines in 2024, including one for melanoma and another for lung cancer. 

With all the promise that these new cancer vaccine trials bring for cancer patients, we explore the different ways in which vaccines could work within the body, and how the time at which future vaccines are administered may vary according to the cancers they are targeting.

This week on the Inquiry we’re asking: Are we close to a cancer vaccine?

Presenter: Tanya Beckett
Producer: Matt Toulson
Researcher: Katie Morgan
Production Coordinator: Tim Fernley
Editor: Tara McDermott
Studio Director: Craig Boardman 

Contributors: 

Meredith McKean, director of Melanoma and Skin Cancer Research for Sarah Cannon Research Institute at Tennessee Oncology

Samra Turajlic, Chief Investigator of translational studies into melanoma and kidney cancer at the Francis Crick Institute and Professor at the Institute of Cancer Research 

Eduardo Vilar-Sanchez, professor in the department of Clinical Cancer Prevention at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

Patrick Ott, Clinical Director at Melanoma Disease Center at the Dana-Farber Institute

Are we close to a cancer vaccine?

Drinks with toxic ingredients have been linked to deaths and poisonings in Turkey, Laos and India in 2024. 

Fake alcohol is unrecorded and unregulated alcohol that hasn’t been registered in official statistics for sales, production or trade. The range of unrecorded alcohol includes alcohol smuggled across borders, counterfeit alcohol and homemade brew. 

This week of The Inquiry we look at how toxic and widespread fake alcohol is. What are the health risks of drinking contaminated alcohol? Bootleg alcohol is big business for criminals, are governments doing enough to combat the illicit alcohol trade?

Presenter: Charmaine Cozier

Producer: Vicky Carter 
Researcher: Katie Morgan
Production Co-ordinator: Liam Morrey
Technical producer: Toby James
Editor: Tara McDermott

Contributors:
Dr. Monica Swahn, alcohol epidemiologist and professor at the Wellstar College of Health and Human Services at Kennesaw State University in the USA, currently based in Uganda. 
Dr Dirk Lachenmeier, food chemist and toxicologist, director of department of plant-based foods at CVUA Karlsruhe, an official control laboratory, Germany.
Piotr Stryszowski, senior economist at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and head of the Working Party on Countering Illicit Trade (WP-CIT), France. 
Jeff Hardy, Director General of Transnational Alliance to Combat Illicit Trade, USA.

Is fake alcohol a global threat?

In December 2024, the decades-old Assad regime in Syria fell following 13 years of brutal civil war.

The Islamist rebel group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, seized power in the capital Damascus, having co-ordinated a lightning offensive along with other opposition forces across the country.

This week on The Inquiry, we examine how recent events led to the current situation, who the main players are vying for control, and the many challenges facing both the new government and the Syrian people. 

Presenter: Tanya Beckett
Producer: Ben Cooper
Researcher: Evie Yabsley
Production Co-ordinator: Liam Morrey
Technical producer: Toby James
Editor: Tara McDermott

Contributors:

Tim Eaton, Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House

Dr Rahaf Aldoughli, Middle East and North African Studies at Lancaster University

David Schenker, Director of the Arab politics programme at the Washington 

Natasha Hall, Middle East programme at the Center for Strategic and International Studies

Image Credit: ABDULAZIZ KETAZ via Getty Images

What next for Syria?

China has approved the construction of what will become the world’s largest hydropower dam in Tibet. Located in the lower reaches of the Yarlung Tsangpo river, it could generate three times more energy than the Three Gorges Dam – also built by China - and currently the worlds’ biggest.
 
This Inquiry examines how important hydropower is for China’s economy, whether it will meet its climate goals and whether this new dam is a “safe project that prioritises ecological protection” as China claims. We look at how it’ll be built, and why some in neighbouring countries have concerns. 

Presenter: Charmaine Cozier
Producer: Vicky Carter 
Researcher: Katie Morgan
Production Co-ordinator: Liam Morrey
Technical producer: Craig Boardman
Editor: Tara McDermott

Contributors:
Brian Eyler, Director of the Energy, Water and Sustainability Programme at the Stimson Center, Washington DC
Neeraj Singh Manhas, special advisor for South Asia at the Parley Policy Initiative, South Korea & Subject Matter Expert at the Centre for Joint Warfare Studies, HQ IDS, Ministry of Defence, Government of India
Prof Mark Zeitoun, Director General of the Geneva Water Hub and professor of Water Diplomacy at the Geneva Graduate Institute, Switzerland
Prof Cecilia Tortajada, Social and Environmental Sustainability at the University of Glasgow, Adjunct senior research fellow Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, Singapore

Image credit: China News Service via Getty Images

Why is China building the world’s biggest dam?

In the decade that followed the Great Financial Crisis, inflation rates remained low and steady, and in some cases even threatened to turn negative, as economies around the world struggled to recover.

This era came to an abrupt end in recent years following the double economic shocks of the Covid pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Many central banks and senior policymakers were caught on the back foot as inflation rates soared to levels not seen for nearly half a century in some countries.

Although rates have since come down from those highs, they are still proving tricky to completely get under control, causing concern among some observers. We explore what inflation is, where it comes from, what has been happening in recent years and what the outlook might be. Our panel includes
Stephen D. King, author and senior economic adviser at HSBC, Vicky Pryce, chief economic adviser at the Centre for Economics and Business Research, Marieke Blom, chief economist and global head of research at ING and Manoj Pradham, author and chief economist at Talking Heads Macroeconomics.

Presenter: Tanya Beckett
Producer: Ben Cooper
Researcher: Katie Morgan
Sound engineer: Richard Hannaford

Where are we in the battle against inflation?

The Panama Canal, a crucial artery for global trade, is at the centre of growing tensions between the United States and China. Donald Trump has claimed that Chinese companies exert undue influence over the waterway, accusing Panama of overcharging US businesses. But does the US still have a legitimate stake in the canal?

With Trump demanding action, Panama faces a difficult choice. Could a renegotiation of tolls or a review of Chinese port contracts ease US concerns?

Contributors:
Will Freeman, Fellow for Latin American studies at the Council on Foreign Relations
Andrew Thomas, Academic and Author of The Canal of Panama and Globalisation
Dr Yu Jie, Senior Research Fellow on China in the Asia-Pacific Programme at Chatham House
 David Young, President of the Committee for Economic Development 

Presented by Gary O’Donoghue
Produced by Louise Clarke
Researched by Katie Morgan
Technical producer Matthew Dempsey
Production Coordinator Liam Morrey 
Editor Tara McDermott

Image credit: Getty Images via MARTIN BERNETTI

How can Panama satisfy President Trump?

The story of how the search for a material to replace ivory changed our lives forever. In the 19th century a billiard ball company placed an advert in a newspaper offering $10,000 to anyone who could come up with a substitute for ivory. There was growing concern that companies were hunting elephants into extinction so they could use their ivory for billiard balls, buttons and umbrella handles. The story that follows takes us from explosive factories that often went up in smoke to the modern world we find ourselves in today. How did plastics go from being a saviour of the environment to a cause for concern? How did we get hooked on plastic? 

Presenter: Helena Merriman
Producer: Phoebe Keane

Photo: A man checks used plastic bottles for recycling at a recycling station in Agartala
Credit: ARINDAM DEY/AFP/Getty Images

How Did We Get Hooked on Plastic?

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