Robert F Kennedy Jr, nephew of America's 35th President, John F. Kennedy, has been nominated to be the next US health secretary by President-elect Donald Trump. The post oversees everything from medical research to food safety and public welfare programmes.

Kennedy has been the face of “Make America Healthy Again”, a movement dedicated to “public health, sustainable practices and a government that truly serves the people”.

This week of The Inquiry, we look at how MAHA wants to tackle chronic disease, in particular obesity. Will RFK carry these ideas into public office? How will food corporations and colleagues in the US Congress react? How feasible is it for the US Health Secretary to shift the dial on healthy eating?

Contributors:

Production Team:

Photo Credit: Bloomberg via GettyImages

The Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan, sandwiched between China and India, is perhaps best known around the globe for its unconventional measure of national development: Gross National Happiness. The concept was introduced back in 1972 by the fourth King of Bhutan, Jigme Singye Wangchuck. It assesses the country’s overall wellbeing on the basis of sustainable and equitable socio-economic development; environmental conservation; preservation and promotion of culture; and good governance.

But the Bhutanese are now finding that their cautious approach to balancing economic growth with the well-being of their citizens, is proving difficult to sustain in light of mounting economic problems. The country which has a population of less than 800,000, is experiencing high levels of youth unemployment and many young people and skilled workers are leaving for countries like Australia and Canada.

To try and counter this brain drain and to attract new investment into the country to help the economy grow, Bhutan has plans to create a ‘Mindfulness City’. This multi-million dollar project is being spearheaded by the current monarch. At its core will be a scaled up, less cautious version of Bhutan’s key concept, which the Bhutanese Prime Minister has called Gross National Happiness 2.0.

So on this week’s Inquiry we’re asking ‘Can Bhutan retain its happiness?’

Contributors:

Dr Rishi Gupta, Assistant Director, Asia Society Policy Institute, New Delhi, India

Dr Lhawang Ugyel, Senior Lecturer, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.

Jan Eeckhout, Professor of Economics, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain

Presenter: Charmaine Cozier

Accusations of sabotage have been made after a Chinese merchant ship cut through two important undersea cables in the Baltic Sea. Eight of the nine states in the Baltic are members of Nato but Russia has access to the sea from St Petersburg and for its Kaliningrad exclave.

With previous incidents of damage to underwater pipelines and cables, there is concern that the security of critical underwater infrastructure is at risk from ‘grey zone’ activities - damaging but deniable incidents below the level of outright war.

David Baker hears how countries’ security is threatened by incidents like these. The pipelines that were cut ran between Finland and Germany and Sweden and Lithuania. He asks who can intervene to protect these assets in the Baltic. Can Nato respond?

Our experts this week are: Elizabeth Braw, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council Scowcroft Centre for Strategy and Security, and the author of an upcoming book called The Undersea War; Helga Kalm, director of the Lennart Meri Conference in Tallinn, Estonia; Marion Messmer, senior research fellow in the International Security Programme at Chatham House; Tormod Heier, professor at the National Defence University College in Oslo, Norway and a former officer in the Norwegian Intelligence Service.

Presenter: David Baker

Image Credit - Rex/Shutterstock via BBC Images

When Chancellor Olaf Scholz fired his finance minister, Christian Lindner last month, Germany’s ‘traffic light’ government collapsed, an uneasy coalition between parties with differing perspectives and strained relations, the Social Democrats, the Greens and the Free Democrats.

At the heart of the political dispute lie deeply opposing views about spending plans, and how to fund much needed investment in infrastructure projects such as transport, education, green energy and digital technology, in order to boost Germany’s international competitiveness.

Falling demand both domestically and overseas for manufacturing goods, the pandemic, war in Ukraine and high energy costs have weakened Germany’s economy. So how can Germany reinvigorate its exports and economic growth? On this episode of The Inquiry, we’re asking: Does Germany need to reinvent itself?

Contributors

Presenter: Tanya Beckett

Image credit - Reuters via BBC Images

The car industry across the European Union employs over thirteen million people, both directly and indirectly, that’s around six percent of the bloc’s workforce. But in recent years, Europe’s manufacturers have been struggling to cope with issues like economic downturns, clean energy requirements and the digital revolution. Some of the oldest, biggest carmakers are considering plant closures and job cuts in order to try and stay afloat.

They are also facing fierce competition in the electric vehicle market from China, who have taken a lead in producing cars that are much more competitively priced and equipped with much more sophisticated technology. China’s own economy has been flagging, so the EU provides it with its largest overseas market in terms of the electric car industry.

But now, in a bid to protect their own car industry, the EU has introduced tariffs on electric cars made in China. These tariffs are set to rise from ten percent up to forty five percent for the next five years. Beijing has condemned them as protectionist and there are concerns that it could spark a trade war between Brussels and Beijing.

So, on this week’s Inquiry, we’re asking ‘Is Europe’s car industry at a crossroads?’

Contributors:

Presenter: Tanya Beckett

Image Credit: Westend61 via Getty Images

When protests against decades of rule by the Assad family were crushed by Syrian government forces in the spring of 2011, opposition groups took up arms and the country descended into civil war. The conflict drew in Syria’s Kurds, jihadi groups including Islamic State and al-Qaeda, and the international community.

13 years on President Assad controls around two thirds of the country, but northern Syria remains out of the regime's grip and is highly volatile. Internal divisions, international influences and a worsening humanitarian situation may be about to further destabilise the region, with potentially serious consequences for Syria and the world. So, in this episode of The Inquiry, we’re asking ‘What’s the future for Syria’s divided north?’

Contributors

Presenter: Emily Wither

Image credit - NurPhoto via Getty Images

Aerospace giant Boeing has had big problems to overcome since the crashes of two of its 737 Max aircraft. Its situation was compounded this year with another safety scare and a strike losing it billions of dollars. It has a new CEO who has pledged to return the company to its engineering roots and away from cost cutting and in October, Boeing managed to raise 21bn US dollars by issuing new shares in the company. However, catching up on lost production will take time and money and financially the company is nowhere near out of the weeds.

Can Boeing regain the trust of regulators, airlines and passengers?

Presented by David Baker.

Image credit - Kevin Burkholder via Getty Images

Earlier this year the global video sharing platform You Tube dominated TV viewership in the United States, knocking Disney off the top spot and leaving major media names like Netflix, Paramount, Amazon and Fox in its wake. In a first for the streaming platform, the time people spent watching YouTube on television accounted for 10.4 percent of total TV in the month of July.

In terms of its world reach, the platform is now available in more than one hundred countries and pulls in nearly three billion users every month, the majority of which are between 25 and 34 years old, that’s younger than the core audience for traditional television.

Launched in 2005, YouTube has since expanded and diversified, but it’s niche area for dominating the market is still in user generated content and the advertising income it draws in provides the platform with its main source of revenue, leaving the traditional TV market in its wake.

So, on this week’s Inquiry, we’re asking ‘Is YouTube’s disruption of TV now complete?’

Contributors:

Chris Stokel-Walker, Journalist, Author of ‘YouTubers: How YouTube Shook Up TV and Created a New Generation of Stars’, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

Dr. Marlen Komorowski, Professor for European Media Markets, Vrije Universiteit Brussels, Senior Research Fellow, Cardiff University, Wales, UK

Image: Silhouettes of laptop and mobile device users are seen next to a screen projection of the YouTube logo

Credit: Reuters/Dado Ruvić

The International Space Station will be decommissioned in 2030 and crash down into the Pacific Ocean, ending more than three decades of international cooperation.

Launched in the wake of the Cold War, the ISS is seen as a triumph of global diplomacy between the US, Russia and other nations. Its demise will mark the end of an era.

Nasa has awarded contracts to commercial companies to develop potential successors to the ISS, and maintain a U.S. presence in low earth orbit. Meanwhile Russia and India have said they plan to launch their own individual stations, and China has already got its own space station, Tiangong.

As the era of the International Space Station nears its end, this week on The Inquiry, we’re asking ‘What will happen after the International Space Station?’

Presenter: Tanya Beckett

Contributors:

Mark McCaughrean, former Senior Advisor for Science & Exploration at the European Space Agency and astronomer at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany

Mai'a Cross, Professor of political science at Northeastern University, and director for the Center for International Affairs and World Cultures, Massachusetts, US

Wendy Whitman Cobb, Professor of strategy and security studies at the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, Alabama, US

CREDIT: State of the Union address, 1984; Courtesy Ronald Reagan Presidential Library

This year wildfires in Canada have caused devastation to the country’s treasured town of Jasper. The wildfires have ravaged the landscape, destroyed communities and displaced hundreds of thousands of people.

The causes are many, and fires are a natural occurrence. But humans, and the climate, are making them worse. As the number and intensity of fires increase, the methods used to both prevent and fight them may need to change.

How can Canada fight its wildfires?

Presenter: Tanya Beckett

Contributors:

(Image: Getty/ Anadolu)