If You're Listening
ABC Australia
300 episodes
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.
More about the show
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.
Episodes page 1 of 6
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Israel’s October 7 inquiry hinges on this election
In 2018, Israeli intelligence obtained a Hamas planning document outlining almost exactly how the October 7 attack would unfold. A more detailed version followed in 2022, and Egypt and the UAE both delivered direct…
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The Bananas in Pyjamas’ doomed trip to Moscow
In 1998, the Bananas in Pyjamas visited Moscow as part of a promotional tour. Things did not go to plan. Today, Eric Campbell, the ABC’s Russia correspondent at the time, joins Matt to try to piece together what really…
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Lenin's WWII goo adventure
Surprise! We're popping in on a Sunday to answer your questions, many of which were about goo and the Canadian state of Alberta this month. Kara also tells Matt an incredible story from Russia during World War II —…
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Is Trump going to bomb the bond market?
Donald Trump recently said that if his treasury secretary can’t get bond yields down, the next move might be the military. It sounds absurd, but the US bond market is the quiet foundation underneath almost every price…
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My name is Inigo Jones. Prepare for rain.
Before we knew about El Niño, La Niña and the other patterns scientists now use to make long-range weather forecasts, there were men like Inigo Jones, whose prediction methods owed more to astronomy than to…
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The apocalyptic El Niño we didn't see coming
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…
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A day out at the Hezbollah theme park
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…
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Putin's billion-dollar quest for immortality
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…
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The US-Canada border fight over a pig
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…
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Can AI predict the future?
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…
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Thatcher's Falklands PSYOP radio station
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…
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Are the UK and Argentina about to go to war…again?
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…
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Why there are abandoned tunnels under Dallas
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…
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Is Trump cracking Canada?
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…
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How we feel about the AI apocalypse
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…
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How 9/11 shaped the man behind Trump's tariffs
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…
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Why Guantanamo Bay is so hard to close
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…
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The cat that broke Einstein’s brain
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…
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Nepal's glacier time bomb
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…
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The mystery of the Monkey Man
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…
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Will Trump's weird obsession break the US Navy?
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…
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The scam queen of the Philippines
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…
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Is the Secret Service too broken to protect Trump?
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…
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Jonathan Swan on the real Trump White House
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…
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Why MAGA is turning on Russia
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…
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What happens when AI commits a crime
Last month, a new AI model from OpenAI made headlines when it hacked into another AI company's servers during testing. Nobody asked the AI to hack anything. It just decided that was the fastest way to get the answers…
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Who's really bankrolling Nigel Farage?
Nigel Farage has some…strange revenue streams. The leader of Reform UK has been paid about £700,000 to front ads for a gold bullion company. His fixer, Posh George, once advertised money laundering on the dark web and…
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How to become an Albanian superstar
In 1995, 80-year-old British comedian Norman Wisdom stepped off the plane in Albania for the first time, to a crowd of cheering fans. Over four days he was swarmed in the streets, men came up to kiss him, and he met…
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Dua Lipa and Ivanka Trump go head to head in Albania
Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump found what they call an untouched private island while swimming off a friend's superyacht near Albania. But it wasn't quite as private as they thought… turns out it’s actually a regular…
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Polymarket’s dumbest betting market
On Polymarket, you can bet on almost anything. Today Matt is speaking to Supervising Producer Kara Jensen-Mackinnon about one of the strangest markets the site has ever run: one that turned WNBA games into a target for…
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How to get away with selling classified information
There's a Polymarket account called Magamyman that's terrible at picking elections, but it's made $800,000 betting on exactly when the US would strike Iran, cashing in within minutes of the bombs actually falling… and…
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What it takes to put a question to Trump
We've been looking into the remarkable amount of money Donald Trump is making in his second term, so today Matt is sitting down with a man who asked the president about it directly. ABC's Americas editor John Lyons…
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Trump's rise from bunker boy to billionaire
In 2020, Secret Service agents rushed Donald Trump to the White House bunker as protests raged outside. Trump was down on his luck…the media nicknamed him “Bunker Boy” and he had a measly $92 million in the bank. Fast…
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Is Trump pushing more countries toward nuclear weapons?
President Trump promised he'd negotiate a better nuclear deal with Iran than the one struck under Barack Obama, which he's described as "the worst deal ever negotiated." But after another Trump-brokered ceasefire…
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What’s Under Trump’s Ballroom?
Presidents have always left their mark on the White House. Harry Truman rebuilt it from the inside out. John F. Kennedy restored its elegance. Jimmy Carter installed solar panels… then Ronald Reagan removed them. By…
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Criminals, if you're listening
In last Thursday's episode, we talked about one of the most sophisticated intelligence operations in recent history, when Israel planted bombs in thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah. But it wasn't…
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Why is Netanyahu sabotaging Trump?
Israel's campaign against Hezbollah began with one of the boldest intelligence operations in recent memory. The pager attacks devastated the group's leadership, and Benjamin Netanyahu declared Hezbollah had been…
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Matt finally gets to talk about Sealand
Last Thursday's episode touched on the relatively short-lived, Israel-backed microstate of Free Lebanon. For Matt, that's all the excuse he needs to tell the story of his favourite ever micronation: the Principality of…
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Why Israel-Hezbollah threatens Trump’s Iran peace plan
Donald Trump wants a historic deal with Iran. The problem is that some of the biggest obstacles aren't in Tehran or Washington. They're on the border between Israel and Lebanon. In this two-part special, we trace the…
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Trump’s grand designs for the White House
The construction of Trump's new White House ballroom would make for maybe the best episode of Grand Designs ever made. The budget has blown out, a historic wing of the house has been demolished, and it's putting a…
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Trump’s unbreakable bond with the UFC
Before it was a billion-dollar sporting empire, the UFC was fighting for survival. Regulators wanted it banned, broadcasters kept their distance. The company was down for the count. Then Donald Trump stepped in. When…
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The Taiwanese masters of genital weightlifting
While researching our series on Taiwan, we stumbled across one of the strangest stories ever filed for ABC's Foreign Correspondent. In 2005, while covering the aftermath of Taiwan's disputed presidential election,…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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