If You're Listening

Jaksot

• Was Taiwan's Olympic champion sabotaged? 02.06.2026 19min

  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 the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq  
• Taiwan’s 100 year fight for freedom 28.05.2026 25min

  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 rebuilt the Republic of China government there. Taiwan was marketed internationally as “Free China” but on the ground, it was a different story. Taiwanese people were subject to nearly 40 years of martial law: censorship, political persecution, arrests, and violent crackdowns on dissent. Eventually the people started to push back.  Today, Beijing considers Taiwan a breakaway province. But in Taiwan, a growing number of people see themselves as something entirely separate: not Chinese, but Taiwanese. 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 secret techbro city of the future 26.05.2026 23min

  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 21.05.2026 26min

  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 chokepoints to force rivals into line. In contrast, Xi’s strategy is slower, colder, and arguably more dangerous. He’s spent years stockpiling resources, staging large-scale military exercises and playing the long game around Taiwan. Two very different strategies, but the same ambition. Two grandmasters are playing for control of the chessboard. 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 is Palantir doing in Australia? 19.05.2026 19min

  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? 14.05.2026 23min

  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 justifications and bold mission statements for his company, citing a laser-focus on maintaining U.S. hegemony across the world. In doing so, he believes Palantir prevents the rise of undemocratic, far-right movements. But is there any line that Palantir won’t cross to assert U.S. superiority? And could they be in danger of undermining the democracy they claim to defend?  Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq   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 FBI dug a tunnel under the Russian embassy 12.05.2026 24min

  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 Listen App Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq
• How did Palantir get so powerful? 07.05.2026 27min

  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 deceptively simple: give analysts the ability to see connections across messy datasets without compromising privacy. The arrival of large language models has supercharged what Palantir was already doing: ingesting, structuring, and interrogating enormous amounts of information. The result is a shift from finding needles in haystacks to, arguably, predicting where the needles will land. It's powerful, unsettling, and very on-brand for a company named after an all-seeing stone from Lord of the Rings. Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq
• Matt's producers present the weirdest tales from the basement 05.05.2026 21min

  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 here 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 unexpected loser of the Iran war 30.04.2026 26min

  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 app Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq
• How not to cover a radioactive incident 28.04.2026 20min

  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 events that led to his first ever live radio cross. 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 the US and Iran make a deal (again)? 23.04.2026 26min

  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? 21.04.2026 21min

  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 all, Matt has enlisted the help of ABC Senior Business Correspondent Carrington Clarke. Carrington also hosts two of the ABC's newest podcasts, ABC Business Daily and Fuelcast.  Follow ABC Business Daily on the ABC Listen app. Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq  
• How the Iran war exposed Australia's energy mistakes 16.04.2026 22min

  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 with Japan. In an extremely volatile market, Australia continues to ship gas offshore at low, fixed rates, while Japan on-sells it at a profit. As domestic prices rise and supply tightens, the consequences of this not-so-great deal are landing at home. So how did one of the world’s largest gas exporters end up with so little flexibility? 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’s on-again, off-again negotiations with Iran 14.04.2026 22min

  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 You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq  
• The brutal scam compounds of Myanmar 09.04.2026 22min

  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 for years. But now, as Chinese citizens fall prey to scam kidnappers, China has forced a response. Will it be enough to stop the spread of these compounds? Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq
• Growing up fighting apartheid 07.04.2026 19min

  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 02.04.2026 20min

  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 on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq  
• When Iraq accidentally bombed a U.S. warship 31.03.2026 22min

  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 27.03.2026 22min

  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