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The world is on fire. There's a coup. Inflation is through the roof, and AI is taking our jobs. What does it all mean? Each week, Matt Bevan explains the biggest story in world news while hiding in his basement from assassins and authoritarian regimes.

Recent episodes include an exploration of the relationship between India and China, a closer look at the Saudi Arabian city of NEOM, the conflict in the Middle East, the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran, and Ukraine's incursions into Vladimir Putin's 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; previous series have focused on the United States presidential election, the United Kingdom's 14 years of Conservative Party leadership, Donald Trump's relationship with Russia, Donald Trump's presidency and promise to Make America Great Again, the Mueller Report, Vladimir Putin's scheme to destroy western democracies, how the relationship between Australia and China came to the verge of collapse, and Australia's turbulent history with climate change.

There's a new episode of If You're Listening every Thursday.

If You're Listening

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 his podcast, No One Saw it Coming to talk about the early days of aerial espionage and why you should never ask a man in a balloon where he's going. 

Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app.

Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq

The balloon that started the US Air Force

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 generation of populist leaders are threatening to undo that important work. So what will that mean for the global economy? 

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Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq

What happens if Trump takes over the Federal Reserve?

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 in a country at war. 

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Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq

The time the US Navy teamed up with the Mafia

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 drug — but it comes at a cost.

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Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq

Weighing up Ozempic

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 into Barbra Streisand’s cloned dogs, and that video of Putin and Xi talking about organ transplants.

Jack’s story inspired the new series of ABC’s Science Friction podcast, Artificial Evolution, which is all about cloning and genetic technology. All episodes are available now on the ABC Listen app.

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Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq

The Montana Mountain King and a conspiracy to clone

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.

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Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq

How dodgy data sent China's economy off course

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 producer Adair Sheppard about the doomed plot and the man behind it, a former Green Beret from Florida named Jordan Goudreau.

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Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq

Florida Man Invades 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 they didn’t like. So what happened last time? And should Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro be watching his back?

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Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq

Why Trump is blowing up boats off Venezuela

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 26 seconds of film for many years. That delay fuelled decades of fascination and conspiracy.

Today, Matt Bevan and Supervising Producer Kara Jensen-McKinnon discuss the Zapruder Film and how the way we experience big news events has changed.

This can't be good for our brains

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 President Donald Trump and his allies called for revenge on what they call “left-wing extremists”. There is no evidence of an organised left wing militia trying to take down the Trump Administration, but is a crackdown on anti-Trump groups now inevitable? 

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Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq

Charlie Kirk’s murder sparks calls for revenge

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 revealed that at least some of these attacks were coordinated and financed by Iran to intimidate and destablise their enemies. It turns out, Iran has spent the last few years bankrolling low level attacks just like this all over the world so is this a signal of Iran’s strength or a weakening regime? 

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Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq

Iran’s global network of goons

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