If You're Listening
Each week, Matt Bevan explains the biggest story in world news while hiding in his basement from assassins and authoritarian regimes. Recent episodes explore the relationship between India and China, the Saudi Arabian city of NEOM, the conflict in the Middle East, and Ukraine's incursions into Russia. Matt Bevan draws connections between stories from the past and the events of the present to help listeners understand world news and international affairs. The podcast also features series about big moments in world news, including the US presidential election, the UK's Conservative Party leadership, and Donald Trump's relationship with Russia.
Episodes
Will Xi Jinping cross the Taiwan Strait?
For decades, Beijing has pursued a simple strategy towards Taiwan: the carrot and the stick. The stick comes in the form of military drills, missile launches, and increasingly aggressive displays of force designed to remind Taiwan of China's power. The carrot is soft diplomacy: business opportunities, cultural exchanges, economic integration, and promises of prosperity under clos
How Peking Duck and Moutai changed the world
Modern China has used ceremonial banquets to resolve diplomatic disputes for decades - but there's often a message hidden within. ABC reporter Bang Xiao gives Matt the meaning behind the meal. Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app.Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq
Taiwan’s violent, messy, beautiful democracy
A fistfight erupts in Taiwan's parliament. Punches fly as two rivals find themselves at the centre of the chaos. On one side is Chen Shui-bian, a member of Taiwan’s progressive DPP who became Taiwan's first president from outside the long-ruling KMT. On the other is Han Kuo-yu, a KMT populist. But this isn't just another political brawl. Their careers mirror Taiwan's transformati
Was Taiwan's Olympic champion sabotaged?
To this day, international recognition of Taiwan is a fraught issue - with only a handful of countries affirming their claim of statehood. Today, Matt's producer Adair tells him the strange saga of Taiwan's Olympic ambitions, including the tale of a Taiwanese man once called the greatest athlete in the world, and the potential plot to take him down.Follow If You're Listening on t
Taiwan’s 100 year fight for freedom
For decades, Taiwan has existed in political limbo: claimed by China, governed separately, and shaped by a history far more complicated than most people realise.After the Second World War, Taiwan was handed back from Japan to China just as the mainland descended into civil war. Mao Zedong’s Communists eventually defeated Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists, who fled to Taiwan and rebu
The secret techbro city of the future
A team of tech billionaires and venture capitalists have proposed a city that promises to revive the American Dream. But secret landgrabs, legal disputes, and good old reliable NIMBYism stands in their way.Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app.Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq
Trump and Xi Jinping’s deadly game of chess
The world watched Donald Trump and Xi Jinping sit across from each other in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing last week. Two leaders with radically different foreign policy styles but the same conviction: that the future belongs to the bold.Trump’s approach to foreign policy has looked like a blitz attack, complete with tariffs, airstrikes and threatening to close strategic
What is Palantir doing in Australia?
Palantir has hundreds of millions of dollars worth of contracts with Australian federal and state governments. The ABC's national AI reporter Cam Wilson joins Matt to share the details.Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app.Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq
Will anything stop Palantir?
The shadowy U.S. tech company Palantir has had a meteoric rise from complete obscurity to transforming the nature of surveillance forever. Pivotal to that rise is its unorthodox CEO, the philosophising tech-entrepreneur Alex Karp. As Palantir integrates itself into systems in every facet of life, from Australian supermarkets to the controversial U.S. ICE raids, Alex Karp provides
The FBI dug a tunnel under the Russian embassy
The CIA and the FBI famously weren't talking to each other in the lead-up to 9/11. This is the story of why. Supervising producer Kara Jensen-McKenna tells Matt about a decades-long secret FBI operation underneath the streets of Washington which ended in one of the most extraordinary betrayals in American intelligence history.Listen to Matt on No One Saw it Coming on the ABC List
How did Palantir get so powerful?
In the aftermath of 9/11, the problem wasn't just intelligence failure; it was information stuck in silos. The FBI and CIA had pieces of the puzzle, but no shared picture. Enter Palantir: a company built on the premise that data, if stitched together properly, could surface threats before they metastasise.Co-founded by Peter Thiel and Alex Karp, Palantir's early pitch was decepti
Matt's producers present the weirdest tales from the basement
From engineers with god complexes to elite athletes prone to being struck by lightning, Matt’s producers Pat and Adair bring the strangest stories that haven’t made it into a story of If You’re Listening.You can listen to Matt Bevan's episode of Conversations hereFollow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app.Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis
The unexpected loser of the Iran war
For decades now, the tiny gas-rich nation of Qatar has been surviving off the back of its international diplomacy. But now old alliances are falling apart and diplomatic norms are being crushed - is the law of the jungle the only law left?Listen to Matt on Conversations on the ABC Listen appFollow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app.Check out our series on YouTube: https:/
How not to cover a radioactive incident
In 2003, fire trucks, ambulances and hazmat crews descend on Merewether High School in Newcastle after reports of a radioactive incident. No one is speaking to the media — except a 14-year-old student who’s just been given a mobile phone. Matt Bevan is live on the scene.Recorded live at Newcastle Writers Festival, Matt revisits a mystery from his past: the bizarre series of event
Will the US and Iran make a deal (again)?
In the midst of bluffs, empty threats and broken promises, Trump has struggled to find any leverage over the Iranian regime he has declared war on, so why is he so confident he can make a better deal than Obama did back in 2015?Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app.Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq
When will Australia run out of fuel?
Until now, Australia has been relying on oil that passed through the Strait of Hormuz before the war began. But the last tankers to leave the Persian Gulf before the conflict are set to arrive in Australia this week. It’s not just the domestic situation that is making hair stand on end. The entire global energy market also seems to be losing its mind. To try and make sense of it
How the Iran war exposed Australia's energy mistakes
When the Strait of Hormuz closed, global gas prices doubled seemingly overnight. As one of the world’s biggest gas exporters, the spike should have meant a big payday for Australia. Unfortunately, it hasn’t played out like that because Australia has a habit of locking in energy deals that look increasingly out of step with reality. Case in point: our long-term gas agreements wit
Trump’s on-again, off-again negotiations with Iran
Matt spent a week camping entirely out of internet reception, so Kara does her best to get him up to speed on all the latest of the US-Iran war negotiations. Trump’s been doing most of his negotiation on Truth Social, and so every day is a new… more deranged revelation. Plus your questions about Iran, the price of petrol, and why there aren’t more oil pipelines answered!Follow If
The brutal scam compounds of Myanmar
Over the past few years, industrial scam compounds have surged throughout Myanmar, buoyed by the resources of powerful criminal networks, and hidden by the chaos of civil war. Occasional raids have uncovered that these compounds are staffed with hundreds of thousands of trafficked workers, kept there by force. China has financially and militarily supported its neighbour Myanmar f
Growing up fighting apartheid
Sisonke Msimang from the new ABC podcast Boycott! joins Matt to share her father’s journey as a revolutionary in the fight against apartheid. Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app.Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq
What happened last time we ran out of oil
Turn on the tv and you’ll see no shortage of concerned journalists standing at fuel bowsers, shaking their heads at the rising prices. For plenty of young people, the idea that we might have to seriously limit our fuel consumption is unprecedented… But for anyone who lived through the 1970s, it’s all too familiar. So why did Donald Trump start this war?Follow If You're Listening
When Iraq accidentally bombed a U.S. warship
In 1987 the USS Stark became the first U.S. ship sunk by missile fire since World War II. The missiles were fired by Iraq, America’s ally at the time, who claim they did it by mistake.Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app.Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq
We were warned about the Strait of Hormuz
While governments scramble to find a way around the Strait of Hormuz, a pipeline sits half-finished in the desert that would have solved the problem. So why was it never completed?Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app.Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq
Why Iran is building their own internet
As we’ve been looking into Iran over this month, we’ve had a lot of trouble finding out what is really happening on the ground. That’s due to the concerted and deliberate internet shutdowns carried out by the Iranian regime. And this isn’t the first time the internet has been shut down for Iranian users. It’s happened many times before. Today, Matt speaks with Deakin University P
Iran is running out of water
Water is the lifeblood of all civilisations. In Iran, the water is drying up. That disappearance is becoming impossible to ignore, and after decades of mismanagement, the country’s water system is approaching a breaking point. Rivers that once crossed the Iranian plateau are drying to threads; aquifers are collapsing; lakes have retreated into salt flats. The roots of the crisis
Life inside the Iranian Revolution
Author Saeed Fassaie shares his story of witnessing the Iranian revolutionary first-hand, from being a political fugitive, to a soldier, to building a new life in Australia.Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app.Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq
Who is Trump really fighting in Iran?
There’s a persistent fantasy in Washington that regimes are like light bulbs: smash the fixture, screw in a new one, problem solved. The reality in Iran is closer to a tangled electrical grid that’s been growing since 1979. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps isn’t just a military unit; it’s a sprawling ecosystem. It runs companies, shapes politics, and embeds itself deep in th
Kylie Moore-Gilbert says Trump might be stuck in Iran
Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert spent over 800 days in an Iranian prison interrogated by the Revolutionary Guard, and got into plenty of arguments while she was there. Kylie returns to the pod to share with Matt what she learnt about the group, what she makes of the latest in the Iran war, and where Australia should go from here.Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Liste
Trump thinks he can switch off the Iran War
Donald Trump once warned against endless wars. Now, he’s launched a strike killing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and many Iranian leadership figures, so what’s changed? Has Trump decided the Iranian regime’s threats are all talk? Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app.Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq
Making sense of Trump’s attack on Iran
Matt and Kara answer your questions about the the unfolding situation in the Middle East.Who are the contenders for new leadership, how will this attack impact the global oil trade and does Donald Trump actually have a master plan?Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app.Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U
Where did Epstein’s money come from?
Where did Jeffrey Epstein get his vast fortune from? Of all the questions surrounding this labyrinthine saga, the source of Epstein’s millions has been one of the most enduring, with the least available evidence. Now, the deposition of billionaire businessman Les Wexner has provided a potential answer - Epstein simply scammed rich clients who didn’t know any better. Could the tru
The Epstein Q&A our lawyers approved
Matt and Kara try to answer your questions about the Epstein files without being sued... with only limited redactions.They get into the consequences for the Royal family, whether Epstein could possibly be “Q”, and whether they’ve changed their view on the claim Epstein was a Mossad agent.Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app.Check out our series on YouTube: https://www
Epstein’s ghost is haunting the UK
A dark Epstein storm cloud is settling in over Europe — and it’s drifting straight across Westminster. As the newly released Epstein files reach London, Keir Starmer faces mounting pressure from within his own ranks, accused of knowing more than he’s let on. Meanwhile, Lord Mandelson’s long-rumored association with Epstein is now headline material, raising questions about how dee
The time an astronaut said they weren't coming back
Space travel is a serious physical and mental challenge by all accounts. But what happens when an astronaut goes rogue mid-flight?Matt is joined by Fiona Pepper, co-host of the Science Friction podcast, to discuss a weird story the team stumbled across when researching flights leading up to the 1986 Challenger disaster.You can listen to The Challenger Legacy, the latest season of
How Epstein and QAnon blew up the justice system
When news first broke of a billionaire sex offender with a private island… the story didn’t erupt through traditional media — instead it circulated through online message boards like 4chan. What began as internet trolling and fragmented rumour became fuel for something much bigger. The Epstein case fed directly into the rise of QAnon, a conspiracy movement built on the belief tha
There Will Be Mud (again)
That's right, we're talking soil again. Is there a field of Ukranian chernozem soil sitting in rural New South Wales? Producer Pat joins Matt to finally find an answer.Plus, rumours of a chernozem black market… is it true, or just a dirty lie?Thanks to the New South Wales Soil Knowledge Network!Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app.Check out our series on YouTube: http
Stephen Miller: Edgelord in Chief
For a long time, no matter which party was in power - the US government has operated within pretty defined guardrails… that is, until Donald Trump returned to the White House for a second term. The bold new direction is largely due to people like Stephen Miller: Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff and the key driver behind his immigration policy. Stephen Miller has spent his entire pol
Pod Save America on the endless escalation of Trump
Jon Lovett has been following the daily minutia of U.S. politics for a decade on his podcast Pod Save America. Ahead of their Australian tour, Jon joined Matt for a wide-ranging chat on how to deal with Trump, and whether the U.S. has a few lessons to learn from the Australian political system. Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app.Check out our series on YouTube: http
Steven Pinker thinks we’re worried about the wrong things
Matt is joined by psychologist and science writer Steven Pinker to discuss doomsday predictions, climate anxiety, and how best to split the balance between pessimistic fatalism and naïve optimism when considering the future.Listen to the full 1959 'Letters to the Unborn' Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app.Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/play
04 Black Swans | Countdown to Doomsday
In the midst of the Cold War, it was a very real fear that a nuclear winter would obliterate life as we know it. Now, fortunately, that never happened. But ironically fast forward to 2026 and the sense of dread of a nuclear war has been replaced by the impending threat of climate change, or being overrun by our AI overlords. So are we destined to feel doomed? This is the final ep
Did a 1981 book correctly predict the future?
Matt and Kara discuss the book that inspired the Black Swan series… but didn’t make it into the final cut! Can experts, soothsayers, and psychics really predict what’s going to happen?This episode is connected to Black Swans, a four-part series by If You’re Listening67 years ago, the ABC recorded a collection of predictions about the future—the one we’re living in now, in 2026. T
03 Black Swans | Burning Hill
In 1959 a flight to London took days and cost half a year’s average salary. But things were changing rapidly. The invention of the Concorde meant that you could fly from Adelaide to London in just under seven hours. Travel was getting faster and many expected we’d be routinely zipping around the world and travelling to other planets in no time. But now, aside from planes, most
The city that ten beers built
Matt and Kara delve deeper into the story of town planner Alex Ramsay, and the bizarre deal he struck to purchase the land that would become Elizabeth, SA. This episode is connected to episode two of the Black Swans series, all concerning predictions of Australia's future, and how we got it so wrong.Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app.Check out our series on YouTube:
02 Black Swans | The Australian Dream
In the 1950s three quarters of Australians were homeowners, most lived on a quarter-acre block, with a mortgage that could be covered with one income while someone stayed at home to look after the children. Nowadays, house prices have sky rocketed and younger generations largely feel locked out. So where did it all go wrong?
01 Black Swans | The Population Bomb
Until recently people were scared our planet would be outstripped by the weight of a colossal population. Experts feared that by 2026, there would be so many people that we would be starved of resources, and eat ourselves to death. Ironically we now find ourselves in a world where we’re not scared about having too many babies, but rather too few. So what happened?Follow If You're
Matt got lost on his way to the costume department
Kara and Matt take you behind the scenes of putting the series together, and how hard it is to find an iron when you need one.The Black Swans series kicks off this Thursday 8th January on podcast, and hits television on Saturday 10th January.Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app.Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L
Trump’s playbook for Nicolás Maduro and Venezuela
In a post on Truth Social, US President Trump announced that he had captured the Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro and his wife, and that the pair would face drug charges in New York. The legality of this seizure is certainly questionable, but surprisingly, an operation like this is not entirely unprecedented. Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app.Check out our seri
NEOM: The world's dumbest megaproject
The massive infrastructure project NEOM sits in the Saudi Arabian desert, and the jewel in its crown is The Line, a futuristic city which looks insane. The AI-generated ads depict a car-free city, for 9 million people housed between two mirrors, stretching along the desert. Despite promises of millions of residents by 2030, the project has been scaled back by 98 per cent. The Lin
What's the deal with fluoride?
Putting fluoride in drinking water has often been called one of the most successful public health measures in human history. But since the very beginning of fluoridation programs in the 1940s, it’s been plagued by misinformation and furious opposition.Now with Robert F Kennedy Jr at the helm of the US Department of Health, the Trump Administration is leading the charge to get sta
How good are Australia’s gun laws really?
Australians are very proud of our gun laws, and we have good reason to be. The laws are world famous and frequently referenced in the wake of almost every mass shooting in the United States. And yet, we have now seen two men terrorise Australia’s Jewish community at a Hanukkah event at Bondi beach with legally-owned high-powered guns. Despite almost universal support for stricter
24 hours after the Bondi shooting
On Sunday the 14th of December, two men; a father and son, used a range of firearms to attack a large Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach playground. At least 16 people were killed, including one of the two gunmen, and a ten year old girl. It was Australia’s worst ever terrorist attack, and its second-deadliest mass shooting. The local and global Jewish community are horrified an
Why is Venezuela falling apart?
During a 15 minute phone call, US President Donald Trump offered the Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro safe passage for him and his family to the country of their choice, if they left Venezuela immediately. The deal seems to have fallen through and now Maduro is in hiding, and for the last few weeks, Maduro has reportedly slept in a different house every night. So why is the co
This robot will shoot you and steal your wife
We have always been obsessed with stories about killer robots. But where do stories about malevolent machines with a mind of their own originate? Matt and Kara dig into the archives and discover an English robot called Alpha who; according to newspapers at the time, “became more man than machine” and “fired a gun at its inventor” in front of a packed room of terrified onlookers i
Where’s my robot butler?
Tech bros are racing to develop the first mass-produced humanoid. But despite billions of dollars in investment, these robots require a great deal of human intervention. So, why has creating a humanoid proven so difficult? Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app.Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq
Is internet piracy making a comeback, me hearties?
You wouldn't steal a podcast!After meeting the founder of Sweden's Pirate Party, Rick Falkvinge, we decided to take a closer look at the world of piracy (on the internet, not the high seas).Matt chats with If You're Listening producer Adair Sheppard about the rise and fall of The Pirate Bay, the kinds of angry letters you'll get for stealing fonts, and whether piracy is making a
Is China’s plan to invade Taiwan inevitable?
Currently, as many as 5000 Chinese spies are operating in Taiwan. Many of Taiwan’s allies are concerned that these spies, along with the increasing frequency of military demonstrations in the South China Sea, indicate Beijing may invade and force the "reunification" of China.Chinese President Xi Jinping has said that while he won’t rule out force, he would prefer a peaceful unifi
The time Andrew Denton tried to hire a bounty hunter
In the early 90s, Australia’s most wanted fugitive was Christopher Skase. He was hiding on the Spanish island of Mallorca, to avoid the corporate crime charges that had been piling up against him back in Australia. In today's episode, Mark Humphries tells Matt about the bizarre attempts to bring Skase back to Australia, including one involving bounty hunters and TV personality An
The truth about China’s social credit scores
For the last decade or so, there’s been a lot of talk about how the Chinese government uses technology to issue social credit scores to its citizens. There was even that episode of Black Mirror that everyone still talks about. Every time a Western government tries to increase its control over the internet, we hear that this is the beginning of a slippery slope that leads to jaywa
maTt and kaRa address yoUr conspiracy THeory
Get ready as Matt and Kara address a whole lot more listener questions. All things from Elon Musk’s impending trillionaire status to the mystery of the missing If You’re Listening episode. Soil also once again gets a mention of course.Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app.Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFM
So you’ve robbed the Louvre… now what?
On the 19th of October at 9:30am, two thieves parked a truck at the Louvre. They carved a hole in the window, climbed into the gallery, smashed two display cases, and made off with 88 million euros worth of crown jewels. It was all over in eight minutes. It turns out robbing the Louvre isn’t as hard as you might think. Many of the security cameras are outdated, and 249 rooms in t
Was the CIA involved in Whitlam's dismissal?
On 11 November 1975, Prime Minister Gough Whitlam was sacked by Governor-General Sir John Kerr. For the past 50 years, people have speculated about the motives behind Kerr’s unprecedented decision — could there have been interference from outside Australia? Today, we’re getting to the bottom of the CIA conspiracy theory that’s dogged Whitlam’s dismissal for decades. Matt talks to
Can we afford to power AI?
In the last decade, the number of data centres worldwide has doubled. As the tech bros spend big to render AI an irreplaceable part of our everyday lives, the energy and water required is truly eye-watering. Nvidia, Google, Microsoft and Meta have already seen their cumulative emissions rise by 72% in the last five years, and given the direction AI is headed, it’s likely that our
This town ain't big enough for two dog puppets
This episode is about a lawsuit between two puppet dogs. What more do you need?This past week we’ve been waist-deep in the dot com boom of the 90s, in particular the meteoric rise and fall of one company called pets.com. It was during this time that supervising producer Kara Jensen-Mackinnon came across a very strange court case between two fictional dogs - the case of the Pets.c
Is the AI bubble too big to burst?
There are no salary caps when it comes to securing the future brains of AI researchers. Mark Zuckerberg recently paid a 24 year old $250 million to come work at Meta. OpenAI gave thousands of employees bonus cheques for millions of dollars. AI developer salaries are rising 32% annually, but just how high can these pay packets go? The AI bubble is now four times the size of the do
The people have spoken and they love mud
Today Matt and Kara are answering your questions, mostly about Trump and mud. They talk about whether Trump could serve a third term, if the rest of the world could just ignore the US, and ask for your help solving a mystery about the soil in the rural NSW town of Nimmitabel. Plus, Matt has a very exciting announcement.Got a question you want us to answer next time? Email ifyoure
Sizing up the Gaza rebuild
On October 8, US President Donald Trump announced that Israel and Hamas had reached an agreement and signed the first phase of the deal. The ceasefire covered the return of all living Israeli hostages as well as the liberation of 2000 Palestinians who had been detained in prisons. What isn’t mentioned in the ceasefire agreement is what happens to Gaza when the fighting is over. I
The balloon that started the US Air Force
So, Matt has found a shiny new rabbit hole to get lost in and this time it's balloons. More specifically spy balloons. This is a story about a man with a fabulous moustache who called himself Professor, who was accused of being the devil in the American Civil War and ended up becoming a spy in a big balloon, triggering the creation of the US Air Force. Matt joins Marc Fennell on
What happens if Trump takes over the Federal Reserve?
US President Donald Trump has set his sights on the Federal Reserve, his unprecedented threat to fire the Fed Chair Jerome Powell and replace him with someone more willing to lower interest rates sent financial markets into a tailspin. It’s taken decades to build robust, independent central banks that people trust to fight inflation and keep the economy on track. But now a genera
The time the US Navy teamed up with the Mafia
Yes you read that right. It's a wild story from the latest series of No One Saw it Coming, a show about people, objects, and accidents that changed the course of history. Today, Marc Fennell joins Matt Bevan to chat about this unlikely alliance. Set during WWII, it’s a story about boats bursting into flame, mobsters with marvellous names, and the curious team-ups that come about
Weighing up Ozempic
This episode originally aired in September 2023.For a century, society has bullied and shamed people into trying to lose weight, without much result. Is the century-long search for a weight loss drug finally over? A seemingly accidental discovery by Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk, people are hailing semaglutide (known as Ozempic or Wegovy) as a miracle weight loss dru
The Montana Mountain King and a conspiracy to clone
Last year, environment reporter Peter de Kruijff stumbled on the case of 81-year-old rancher Arthur “Jack” Schubarth, who was sentenced to six months in jail for a truly bizarre crime. He orchestrated an elaborate, multi-country conspiracy to smuggle the tissue of a rare bighorn sheep into the U.S. and clone it.Today, Matt chats to Peter about this outlandish plot. They also get
How dodgy data sent China's economy off course
This episode originally aired in August 2023.How do you plan for a country when you don’t even know how many people live there? That’s the problem China faced after decades of dodgy population data and the One Child Policy. No longer the world's largest country, China's population is shrinking, its property sector is faltering, and its economy is feeling the strain.Follow If You'
Florida Man Invades Venezuela
While working on last Thursday’s episode, Matt had the very sad but familiar experience of cutting one of his favourite parts out of the script.It’s the bizarre story of a group of American mercenaries who tried to invade Venezuela and collect the $15 million reward offered by the U.S. Justice Department for capturing President Nicolás Maduro.Matt chats with If You’re Listening p
Why Trump is blowing up boats off Venezuela
The U.S. military has now attacked three boats off the coast of Venezuela in as many weeks. On the surface, it’s hard to see exactly what the administration is hoping to gain out of this. But when you look at it in a historical context, it makes a lot more sense. This follows a playbook the United States used 35 years ago to topple a Central American dictator they had decided the
This can't be good for our brains
It’s been almost two weeks since we woke up to the news of Charlie Kirk’s assassination. If you were online that morning, you probably saw rolling updates, speculation, conspiracy theories, and graphic footage — all before breakfast.But it hasn’t always been like this. When Abraham Zapruder filmed the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, the public didn’t see those
Charlie Kirk’s murder sparks calls for revenge
In the days since the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the internet has been awash with conflicting information about the assassin’s ideological motivations. Until recently, most people understood that political violence in America tends not to be organised, but one idea has galvanised many of those on the right: “they are trying to get us”. Just minutes after the shooting, US Pres
The Kurdish Fox and the Strawberry
While researching our last episode on the bizarre wave of Iran-banked anti-semitic attacks in Australia and around the world, Matt ended up somewhere unexpected… Swedish TikTok. He was intrigued (and baffled) by a viral sound from a gangster known as the Kurdish Fox that blew up in late 2023.To help him understand this meme, Matt got in touch with the journalist who broke the sto
Iran’s global network of goons
There has been a spike in antisemitic attacks around the world, but there was something off about the ones happening here in Australia. The graffiti had Israel spelled wrong and they were committed largely by people with no clear ideological motivation. For many, the slapdash nature of these attacks raised a serious question about who was really behind them. Recently ASIO reveale
Matt has been stuck in the mud for seven years
There’s a story Matt’s been trying to tell on If You’re Listening almost since day one. It’s about the agriculture, soil and water of Ukraine, and he thinks it’s fascinating. Over the years he's tried to write it into episode after episode, only for it to be cut out by four separate producers.Today, Matt attempts to convince Supervising Producer Kara Jensen-Mackinnon (and hopeful
Is Putin a master manipulator or a very smart guy?
Donald Trump once said he could end the war between Russia and Ukraine in one day. Well, it’s now been over 200 days and he’s finally admitted that it might be a little more complicated than he originally thought. The man he’s sent to broker this important peace deal is his best bud Steve Witkoff, a lawyer turned billionaire real estate developer turned peace negotiator. In the l
