The World: Latest Stories

Opposition from farmers in Europe has caused a last-minute delay to a major free trade agreement 25 years in the making. The deal between the EU and Mercosur countries in South America was due to be signed this weekend, but will now be postponed to mid-January. The World's Host Carolyn Beeler speaks with Nicolas Saldias, an analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit.

For the first time in decades, foreigners in Saudi Arabia can legally buy alcohol at certain stores. High-end hotels are advertising job openings for bartenders and drink specialists, in a move that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. This comes as the Kingdom is set to host the men's World Cup in 2034 and it tries to entice tourists to visit. It also wants to shift its economy away from oil. The World's Shirin Jaafari reports.

A century-old archive of klezmer tunes was retrieved by Ukrainian and Japanese graduate students from the Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine, brought to New York and is now being digitized and notated. These tunes - about 1,400 of them - enlarge the klezmer repertoire four-fold. They haven't been heard in 100 years, and in the last couple of years have been recorded by klezmer artists from around the world. Jon Kalish reports.

"The Odyssey - From Vietnam to America" is a tribute to the refugees who fled Vietnam in the aftermath of that war. The refugees became known as "boat people," as they risked everything to sail in small, overcrowded boats in search of freedom. Musician Van-Anh Vanessa Vo spoke to many survivors and included their voices in her work. Vanessa Vo recently spoke to Host Carolyn Beeler.

Australia's government has vowed to tighten firearms laws, toughen hate-speech measures and curtail immigration in the wake of Sunday's massacre at a Jewish Hanukkah festival. Daniel Lo Surdo, a reporter at the Sydney Morning Herald speaks with The World's Host Carolyn Beeler about the simmering anger among victims' families.

The European Union agreed this morning to provide Ukraine with a $105 billion interest-free loan to cover vital economic and military needs. European leaders had hoped to use frozen Russian assets, but that was cancelled at the last minute due to pushback from Belgium. Host Carolyn Beeler has more.

This week saw two shootings in the US that made national and international headlines. The first was at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Two days later, Nuno Loureiro, a Portuguese immigrant and a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was found shot dead at his home in Brookline, Massachusetts. A suspect in both shootings was found dead in a New Hampshire storage facility. He was a former student at Brown and also a Portuguese citizen. It's a developing story and being watched closely in Portugal, as journalist Sofia Neves, a reporter at the Portuguese daily paper PUBLICO, tells The World's Host Carolyn Beeler.

Thousands of marines stationed at bases from California to Arizona recently gathered at Camp Pendleton in southern California for the annual Steel Knight exercise. Instead of just military maneuvers, the troops used scenarios from past military mistakes, like the evacuation of Kabul in 2021. The drills took place in what the Marines call K-2 Combat Town, a simulated urban area. Andrew Dyer of KPBS reports.

Heng Guan is a Chinese citizen from central China. In 2020, he read about mass detentions and other human rights abuses against Uyghurs in the western Chinese region of Xinjiang, and he decided to go see for himself. The video he put on social media in 2021 provided valuable confirmation of widespread human rights abuses in Xinjiang, which the US government said amounted to genocide that very same year. Now, Guan is in ICE detention, facing the possibility of being deported to Uganda. Human rights advocates say this would put Guan in grave danger and that his case for asylum is a textbook example of why the US created this pathway to citizenship in the first place. The World's Matthew Bell reports.

In Denmark, there seems to be a porridge for every occasion. A quintessential part of the local Christmas diet is a rice porridge called risengrod. The dish hearkens back to a time when rice was a luxury in the Scandinavian country, says restaurateur Lasse Andersen. Last Christmas, Andersen took The World's Joshua Coe behind the counter at one of his porridge bars in Copenhagen to show him how to cook this Danish classic.This story originally aired on Dec. 23, 2024.

Residents of the Malian capital, Bamako, have seen more gas reaching the pumps recently, after a weeks-long blockade by an al Qaeda-affiliated group called JNIM had brought the city to a near stand-still. But the threat to Mali's military junta continues, as The World's Gerry Hadden reports.

Eleven members of the Nigerian Air Force were released from detention yesterday in Burkina Faso, in West Africa. Their aircraft made an emergency landing there more than a week ago, and a Nigerian delegation had to negotiate with Burkina Faso's military junta to get the personnel released. Host Marco Werman has more.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced a $35 billion natural gas deal with Egypt. American company Chevron is part of the deal and it is the largest in Israel's history. It comes at a time when there's a tenuous ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza. Long before the current conflict in Gaza, Israeli strikes on infrastructure, control over fuel and precarious grid access made electricity a flashpoint. From the podcast Lawless Planet, Zach Goldbaum reports on how energy became another weapon of war and what it means when power can be switched off at a moment's notice.You can hear the full episode at wondery.com/links/lawless-planet.

European leaders are locked in talks in Brussels over how the EU will fund future support for Ukraine, with the outcome of the summit seen as critical to Kyiv's ability to sustain its war effort. One of the most divisive issues is whether to use billions of dollars in frozen Russian assets to help finance Ukraine's military and economic needs. The World's Europe Correspondent Orla Barry joins Host Marco Werman with the latest.

From the Great Lakes in the US to the glacial-melt waters of Switzerland, quagga mussels have wreaked havoc on local ecosystems. Now, they've been reported in Northern Ireland. Bastiaan Ibelings is a microbial ecologist at the University of Geneva. He tells The World's Host Marco Werman that the pesky mollusks have transformed Lake Geneva over the past decade. He joins Marco from a small village near Martigny, Switzerland.

After more than a year of street protests against the Guggenheim's plan to bring art into nature," the museum's board of trustees voted last night to kill the project. Guggenheim Urdaibai" would have seen buildings, walkways and installations go up inside one of northern Spain's most important migratory bird stopover points. The World's Gerry Hadden reports.

In the last of a three-part series about a software tool used to secretly track people, reporter Michael Montgomery explains what the company First Wap has been up to over the past 10 years. Its software tool runs on a vast trove of data that includes information about lots of regular people, but that data drops off in 2015. His reporting stems from a collaboration between Reveal, Lighthouse Reports and 12 other newsrooms around the globe.

Pads and tampons are prohibitively expensive in Pakistan, where the taxes and duties on the products can be up to 40% of the cost. They are even excluded from the list of essential goods that are exempt from taxes, such as milk and cheese. Mahnoor Omer is a lawyer taking the government to court over the taxes. She speaks with The World's Host Carolyn Beeler from Islamabad.

In Yemen, the forces of The Transitional Council said they were moving to take yet another southern province this week. In a civil war that has dragged on for over a decade, the separatist faction backed by the United Arab Emirates has seized much of Yemen's south, and has defied Saudi Arabia-led efforts to deescalate. Host Marco Werman learns more from Abdulghani Al-Iryani. He's a senior researcher with the Sana'a Center for Strategic Studies.

Skate Canada, the national governing body for figure skating in the country, says it will no longer hold major events in Alberta, after the province passed legislation banning transgender athletes in women's sports. "Skate Canada has determined that we are unable to host events in the province while maintaining our national standards for safe and inclusive sport," it said in a statement. Alberta officials criticized the decision, saying they support the province's "Fairness and Safety in Sport Act," also known as Bill 29, which came into effect on Sept. 1. The legislation permits only athletes assigned female at birth to compete in women's sports.

Some people go to thrift stores primarily to find a good deal. Other people go to find older, vintage items they wouldn't find anywhere else. But there's no way anyone expected to find something quite this old at Thrifty Boutique in Chilliwack, British Columbia, about 60 miles outside of Vancouver in Canada. The World's Bianca Hillier reports on the possibly ancient artifacts.

EU-US relations remain tense after Washington's new national security strategy slammed the European Union's migration policies, warning that the bloc risks civilizational erasure." Most European leaders dismissed the critique. One warning, though, did strike a chord with some in the EU: that excessive regulation is holding back the bloc's economy. The World's Europe Correspondent Orla Barry has more.

Most of the population in Gaza is living in tents, because most buildings in the Palestinian enclave were damaged or destroyed during two years of war with Israel. In recent days, powerful winds and heavy rains have damaged tent encampments and brought some severe flooding. Several buildings have collapsed. One baby froze to death. Hosts Marco Werman and Carolyn Beeler have the details.

The 1994 sinking of the ferry Estonia is up there with the Titanic as one of the worst maritime disasters in history. This week, a Swedish-Estonian-Finnish investigative team said the shipwreck, which led to the deaths of more than 800 people, was caused by a structural failure. Their report is a bid to put to rest 30 years of controversy surrounding the cause of the sinking, as Kristjan Tabri tells Host Marco Werman. He's a professor of marine technology at the Tallinn University of Technology.

Lighthouse Reports stumbled on a new, secret software being used to track people all over the world. It is easy to understand why some of them were being surveilled - journalists, politicians, the rich and famous. But sometimes, the software has been used by individuals to track and harass random people. REVEAL's Michael Montgomery has the second story in our three-part series.

Prosecutors in Serbia have charged a government minister there with abuse of office and falsifying of documents, in an apparent attempt to pave the way for a real estate project. That high-rise development is meant to be financed by a company linked to Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump's son-in-law. Hosts Marco Werman and Carolyn Beeler explain the charges, and the connections.

The European Union's ambitious plans to pivot to electric vehicles may be unraveling. Brussels has announced it will backtrack on its 2035 combustion engine ban, and allow carmakers to continue producing a small number of petrol and diesel vehicles. Ilaria Mazzocco, a senior fellow focusing on energy and sustainability at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), talks with Host Carolyn Beeler about the decision and the future of the global EV market.

Two US service members were killed in an attack in Syria over the weekend. This is the first time American forces have been killed in the country since the new government took control a year ago. President Donald Trump said the attacker was an ISIS member. The World's Shirin Jaafari reports that the news has raised questions about the future of American forces in Syria.

Hosts Carolyn Beeler and Marco Werman review global headlines flying just under the radar.

Baker and writer Laurel Kratochvila says that when it comes to Polish baking, it's best when the food is "good, good, not too sweet." That phrase inspired the title of her new cookbook, "Dobre Dobre: Baking from Poland and Beyond." Kratochvila spoke to host Carolyn Beeler earlier in the fall.This story originally aired on Oct. 23, 2025.

Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai has been found guilty on charges of conspiracy after a lengthy trial widely viewed as a sham. Lai has been in detention for over five years already, during which time his health has drastically declined. He now awaits sentencing. Host Carolyn Beeler has more.

Since the 16th century, people have interpreted fortunes in the dregs of Turkish coffee. But a new generation is making the practice their own. The World's Durrie Bouscaren brought us the story from Istanbul.This story originally aired on Oct. 11, 2024.

A company called First WAP makes sophisticated phone-tracking software capable of pinpointing any person in the world. The company behind the technology has tried to remain unknown. But an investigation by the radio program REVEAL along with Lighthouse Reports, found that First WAP is quietly selling this surveillance capability to companies, individuals - even the Vatican. REVEAL's Michael Montgomery has the story.

Chileans have elected their most right-wing leader since the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet ended in 1990. Jose Antonio Kast won a runoff election with more than 58% of the vote. The World's Host Carolyn Beeler speaks with Rossana Castiglioni, political scientist at Diego Portales University.

Australia's Jewish community is reeling from a mass shooting at a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach. Reporter Daniel Lo Surdo of the Sydney Morning Herald has been covering the story from the scene of the massacre. He speaks with The World's Host Carolyn Beeler about calls for updates to gun laws, as well as rising extremism in Australia.

Rokia Kone recorded the song N'yanyan in one take, on a night when the world around her was in upheaval. It was August of 2020, and there was a coup d'etat in Mali. She found solace in the words, "Things may be bad now, but it's only a moment in time." Host Carolyn Beeler has more.This story originally aired on Nov. 29, 2021.

Abandoned parts of rural Spain now have a musical champion: an up-tempo trio called The Leeches of Guadiana. The young musicians sing the praises of small-town life, and call for its revival. As The World's Gerry Hadden reports, the band has packed village festivals and big plazas this year.

Host Carolyn Beeler wraps up the with the music of Icelandic wunderkind Gabriel Olafs and a composition that reflects the deeply calming side of his music.This story originally aired on Aug. 5, 2022

This week marked one year since the fall of the Assad regime and the end of the Syrian Civil War. To understand how things are going - and where things are headed - we turn to Amr Al-Azm. He's a Syrian historian at Shawnee University. When we spoke to him last year, there was an overwhelming sense that, finally, the war was over. Today, he joined the show from Doha, Qatar.

Across the UK and Europe, thousands of aging landfills are at risk of leaking toxic waste. That's in part due to climatedriven flooding and erosion. A joint investigation by a UK-based environmental journalism nonprofit, Watershed Investigations, and Investigate Europe mapped more than 60,000 sites and found that 30% lie within flood zones. Watershed's Leana Hosea has the story.

FIFPRO, the union representing professional soccer players around the world, released a report today emphasizing the need for better investment in women's soccer, plus more mandatory rest periods in the annual schedule. The report says that "a two-speed industry is continuing to emerge in women's professional [soccer] with widely contrasting levels of workload for players across the industry." The World's Bianca Hillier has the details.

This week, the Trump Administration announced sanctions against Colombians involved in hiring out mercenaries to the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group fueling Sudan's civil war that the US says is involved in genocide. But this isn't the first time Colombian soldiers for hire have cropped up in a conflict zone. The World's Host Carolyn Beeler learned more from Elizabeth Dickinson, deputy director for Latin America with the Crisis Group, who's based in Bogota.

From September to October this year, law enforcement agencies around the world seized a record number of illegally traded live animals and bushmeat. That's according to Interpol, which led the sting known as Operation Thunder 2025. The World's Host Carolyn Beeler speaks with Christian Plowman, program manager at the the International Fund for Animal Welfare's department of wildlife cybercrime.

Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya was the head of the last functioning hospital in northern Gaza. Despite repeated orders from the Israeli army, he refused to leave his patients and evacuate. Last December, Israeli tanks surrounded the hospital and forced him and his staff to come out. They did, and the doctor was arrested and taken away. A year on, Abu Safiya remains in Israeli detention without being formally charged. The World's Shirin Jaafari reports about the fate of the last doctor in northern Gaza.

Paul Salopek is a National Geographic explorer retracing the path of human migration. More specifically, the scientific community's best guess for the likely path of early human migration. While walking through China, he visited the Academy of Sciences and met with paleo-anthropologists there, who shared their discoveries that cast some doubt on some popular theories of human evolution. He joins Host Carolyn Beeler to share what he learned.

Artist Kirstie Macleod is the mastermind behind a massive piece of art that took 14 years and 380 people to create. It's called, simply: The Red Dress project. While the dress is made of burgundy silk, artists around the world have embroidered their own unique, colorful designs onto it to show off their cultures and countries. The World's Bianca Hillier reports on what the dress means to the people involved.

For generations, wool was a trusty European staple. But with the rise - and rise - of cheap synthetic materials, wool's being pushed out. The knock-on effect has been that wool's gone from being a valuable resource to a waste by-product for cheese and meat-producing sheep farmers. Reporter Dany Mitzman from our partners at Deutsche Welle, DW, has the story.

Venezuela has the world's largest proven oil reserves, but production has collapsed in recent years due to corruption, under-investment and mismanagement. Francisco Monaldi, director of the Latin America Energy Program at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy, discusses the future of the troubled industry in Venezuela with The World's Host Carolyn Beeler.

Spanish police arrested three men in November, after months of surveillance alongside Europol counterterrorism agents. The suspects are accused of plotting an imminent terrorist attack, and of belonging to a terrorist organization known as The Base, which started in the US in 2018. The group seeks societal collapse through violence, then to establish white-dominated ethnostates. The World's Gerry Hadden reports from Barcelona.

At the end of last month, Quebec's provincial government introduced a bill that aims to expand it's authority to restrict religious expression in public. It would ban group prayer in public spaces like parks, stop public institutions from serving only halal or kosher foods and prevent universities from providing prayer rooms and interfaith spaces for religious students. Host Carolyn Beeler speaks to Haseeb Hassaan from the National Council of Canadian Muslims to hear more about this law and why it was introduced.