If You're Listening

Episodes

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  The apocalyptic El Niño we didn't see coming 15.10.2026 26m

  Toxic smoke haze is blanketing Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines, after weeks of fires in Indonesia. In central Chile, flash flooding has trapped people on their roofs, and already Australia’s spring is unusually hot. Scientists have confirmed it’s an El Niño year, and it’s expected to be one of the worst on record, tipping the odds for these extreme weather events. But we haven’t always had this warning — in 1982 there was a whole heap of apocalyptic weather, and no unifying theory to bring it all together. That “super El Niño” would totally change how we think about forecasting the weather. Now climate change threatens to send us back to the 1980s. Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq  
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  A day out at the Hezbollah theme park 13.10.2026 19m

  Over recent decades, Hezbollah has become deeply embedded in southern Lebanon. It runs everything from hospitals and schools to infrastructure projects, and even has its own theme park. Naturally, when an email landed in our inbox from listener Alex who’s actually been to that theme park, we wanted to know every detail. So Matt gave him a call. Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq  
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  Putin's billion-dollar quest for immortality 08.10.2026 26m

  A hot mic caught Putin telling Xi that organ transplants could bring immortality. It's not just talk, and it's not new either: Russian leaders have spent nearly a century chasing eternal life, with some genuinely bizarre results. Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq  
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  The US-Canada border fight over a pig 06.10.2026 23m

  With tensions between Donald Trump and Mark Carney heating up, it's the perfect excuse to revisit another time things got tense on the US-Canadian border… back before Canada was Canada. In June 1859, on a small island wedged between what's now Washington State and Vancouver Island, an American farmer raised his rifle at a pig that kept eating his potatoes, and pulled the trigger. Within weeks, that one dead pig had brought the United States and the British Empire to the brink of war. It became known as the Pig War. No One Saw It Coming host Marc Fennell tells Matt how it all played out, and why it took the German Kaiser to settle it. Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq
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  Can AI predict the future? 01.10.2026 25m

  The US-Israel war with Iran. The UK leadership kerfuffle. Who’d finish the top of the ladder in the AFL. At the start of 2026 none of these things would have felt all that predictable. But as Matt experiments with AI stuck in the recent past, he finds computers have gotten good at predicting certain kinds of futures — and he investigates what that means for us, and for Donald Trump.  Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq
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  Thatcher's Falklands PSYOP radio station 29.09.2026 21m

  The 1982 Falklands War wasn't just fought on land and at sea, but also over the airwaves. Radio was part of the strategy on both sides of the conflict, with Britain launching its own covert radio station as a form of 'grey' psychological warfare. Global Roaming producer Pat Sunderland tells Matt the story of Operation Moonshine. Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq  
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  Are the UK and Argentina about to go to war…again? 24.09.2026 27m

  In 1982, Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, and Britain took them back by force. But it was messier behind the scenes than it looked… leaked tapes, real and fake, revealed Ronald Reagan secretly urging Margaret Thatcher not to humiliate Argentina, even as the US publicly stood by its closest ally. More than 40 years later, the islands are back in the headlines, and Argentina's president Javier Milei, one of Donald Trump's closest ideological allies, is talking about claiming them. But this time things have changed, this time the US might not automatically side with Britain. A Pentagon memo has reportedly floated reconsidering support for UK sovereignty over the islands, after Britain refused to help with the war in Iran. So which ally does Trump actually pick? Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq  
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  Why there are abandoned tunnels under Dallas 22.09.2026 17m

  We love a tunnel on this show. A few months ago Kara told Matt all about the FBI's secret tunnel under the Russian embassy in Washington. Today Matt takes Kara back underground, digging into the rise and fall of the pedway: an infrastructure idea that spread through North America in the 1960s and 70s, from Montreal to Dallas to Calgary, with mixed results. Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq
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  Is Trump cracking Canada? 17.09.2026 28m

  Donald Trump's trade war with Canada has renamed lakes, threatened to make Canada the 51st state, and slapped tariffs on everything from steel to snowmobiles. The surprising part is what it's doing to the country itself. Quebec, home to Canada's oldest and fiercest separatist movement, has been hit hardest by the tariffs, and yet, support for leaving Canada has dropped to its lowest level in decades. Meanwhile in oil-rich Alberta, largely spared by Trump's tariffs and booming from high oil prices, a once-fringe separatist movement is gaining ground, with a referendum on leaving Canada looming in October. As far as Trump is concerned, he doesn't care where the cracks appear…as long as Canada eventually caves in. Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq  
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  How we feel about the AI apocalypse 15.09.2026 19m

  In this highly anticipated mailbag episode, Matt and Kara finally answer the most-asked question in the If You're Listening inbox. Plus, they talk dirty bombs, whether or not Matt is qualified to be doing this, and give their takes on AI insiders’ warnings about humanity’s destruction. P.S. Please stop emailing us about mugs Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq
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  How 9/11 shaped the man behind Trump's tariffs 12.09.2026 25m

  On September 11, 2001, Howard Lutnick's firm Cantor Fitzgerald lost 658 employees, including his brother and best friend, when the World Trade Center collapsed. Days later, he became a national pariah for cutting off their salaries, a gamble to keep the company alive long enough to eventually give their families a quarter of its future profits. It worked. Twenty five years on, that same billionaire is Donald Trump's Commerce Secretary, and the man driving his global tariff war. Lutnick's business thrives on chaos rather than growth, and having survived and profited from the worst days of his life, he seems entirely unafraid of the economic wreckage his tariffs are causing. So what happens when a man built to bet everything on volatility gets his hands on the entire US economy? This episode was originally broadcast May 2025. Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq
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  Why Guantanamo Bay is so hard to close 10.09.2026 29m

  It’s been 25 years since the September 11 attacks, and Guantanamo Bay is still open. But its use as a legal grey zone predates the War on Terror by a decade. In the early 1990s, thousands of Haitians fleeing a coup were held at Guantanamo, including hundreds of HIV-positive refugees held there indefinitely until Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins called it out at the Oscars.  A US court ruling from that saga established that America's constitution doesn't apply on the base, because while the US has complete control there under a 1903 treaty, Cuba technically retains sovereignty. That's the same loophole the Bush Administration used when it opened a detention centre there in 2002, and 25 years on, the US still hasn't figured out how to close it. Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq  
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  The cat that broke Einstein’s brain 08.09.2026 26m

  So, there’s a cat in a box and it’s trapped. Most people have at least heard of the term Schrodinger’s cat. But many of us don’t actually know what it is. Science reporter Jacinta Bowler might have the answers... They spent months with their head in quantum physics land for Dead and Alive, a series of Science Friction on ABC Radio National. Today we’re unpacking what this all means, and how it could lead to a technological revolution... That could solve the world’s biggest problems: feeding more people, curing disease, optimising public transport so there are never any delays ever again...That is... If it ever gets off the ground. Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq  
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  Nepal's glacier time bomb 03.09.2026 25m

  In August, a glacier collapse in Nepal triggered a catastrophic flood, and the danger still isn't over. Fragile new lakes have formed from the debris, and authorities are warning that another flood could burst through at any moment, putting rescuers still working in the area at risk. It's called a Glacier Lake Outburst Flood, and unlike most disasters, it doesn't really have an aftermath… the same lake can collapse again and again for years.  These floods are becoming more common as the climate warms. But there's also a rare bit of good news: a decade ago, Nepal's own army successfully defused a similar lake, flying equipment up a mountain to build a permanent drain. Alaska's capital Juneau has the same problem and the same fix on the table. It just hasn't built it. Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq
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  The mystery of the Monkey Man 01.09.2026 24m

  There was a very curious crime wave recently in India... a number of victims presented to the hospital with scratches and bites - like they'd been attacked by something. When questioned by police, they all described the perpetrator as a "Monkey Man". A short, half-monkey, half-man, dressed in a monkey-sized police uniform, and he was causing havoc. ABC Journalist Ann Jones has been looking into this Monkey Man for her new series, "Nature's Most Wanted".  Check it out here: https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/what-the-duck/natures-most-wanted/106620406 Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq  
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  Will Trump's weird obsession break the US Navy? 27.08.2026 28m

  Sailors on the USS Abraham Lincoln have spent more than 250 consecutive days at sea without a single port call, a new US Navy record. Leaked photos show broken toilets and meals of mystery mush, the result of being trapped on the wrong side of Iran's blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. But the real story is much bigger.  The Navy's next-generation carriers were built around untested electromagnetic catapults that took over a decade and billions more than planned to get working, contributing to a shipbuilding backlog linked to a spike in sailor suicides. Now Donald Trump, who's long hated electric catapults, wants to switch back to old-fashioned steam, a call engineers say could make the mess a whole lot worse. Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq
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  The scam queen of the Philippines 25.08.2026 24m

  Earlier this year, we took a deep dive into the seedy underbelly of the scam centres of Cambodia and Myanmar. And there was one story that our producer, Pat Sunderland, uncovered that we couldn't really fit in. It's the story of a beloved mayor whose fall from grace changed the political landscape of the Philippines. Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq
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  Is the Secret Service too broken to protect Trump? 20.08.2026 27m

  The Secret Service was created to hunt counterfeit money, and only started guarding presidents after three assassinations forced Congress's hand in 1901. More than a century later, agents still split their careers between protecting the President and investigating fake twenties. The agency is understaffed by over 20 percent, and burnt-out staff are hitting mandated overtime pay caps by the thousands.  It's already led to scandal, security lapses, and a botched response to the assassination attempt on Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, the threats are multiplying and becoming even more complex; domestic militia plots and foreign intelligence operatives are becoming more common. So can an agency stretched this thin actually keep up? Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq
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  Jonathan Swan on the real Trump White House 18.08.2026 36m

  New York Times reporter Jonathan Swan has spent more than a decade covering Donald Trump, and he says nothing compares to this term. His new book, Regime Change, co-written with Maggie Haberman, argues Trump's second presidency is being run unlike any other in living memory: driven by gut instinct over briefings, staffed by loyalists chosen for devotion rather than experience, and designed to move faster than Congress, the courts or the media can keep up with.  Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq  
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  Why MAGA is turning on Russia 13.08.2026 25m

  Last month Ukrainian drones struck an Iranian ship in the Caspian Sea, the first direct link between the wars in Ukraine and Iran, and proof of a secret arms pipeline between Moscow and Tehran. The strike came amid an extraordinary shift inside MAGA world.  Pro-Trump influencer Laura Loomer, who once called Zelenskyy an authoritarian and said Ukraine needed to be "denazified", has spent months touring Kyiv and doing friendly interviews with the Ukrainian president. Now Zelenskyy is using his new MAGA allies to argue Ukraine can help Trump too, which is good timing because the US has nearly run out of missiles. Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq