Taiwan is an island about 180 kilometres off the coast of China - nearly 24 million people live there. Taiwan is self governed but China says it’s part of its territory. Only 12 countries (plus the Vatican) officially recognise Taiwan as a country. Taiwan is increasingly worried that China could be preparing to take the island by force.

Whatever happens there could affect your whole online life, because Taiwan makes most of the world’s computer chips, which power your phone, your laptop, AI apps and electric cars.

In this episode Shawn Yuan from the BBC’s Global China Unit explains the relationship between Taiwan and China and how the whole world could be affected if conflict broke out.

We also hear from Taiwanese students Yi-Ting and Louis and Chinese student Rongzhi, who tell us how they feel about Taiwan-China relations.

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On Sunday evening in Australia, two gunmen opened fire on a Hanukkah event on Sydney’s Bondi Beach in Australia. Fifteen people were killed and dozens more are in hospital.

In this episode we’re going to look at what we know about what happened and talk about why the Jewish community in Australia were already concerned about their safety before the shooting.

Australia has some of the strictest gun laws in the world - we’ll also talk about how they work and why some people are now calling for them to be tightened. BBC’s William Lee Adams joins us to help

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Vases crafted thousands of years ago, temples built by past civilisations, natural parks with stunning waterfalls. These are all tangible things, there is a physical trace of them and many times they are protected and valued.

But what about festivals, recipes or dances and skills that are unique to a certain part of the world? These cannot be stored, really. However they are passed on, become part of many people’s identities and are known as intangible cultural heritage.

UNESCO, the United Nations agency that focuses on culture and education has released its yearly list recognising these practices. But what does it actually mean to be included and why is it celebrated? We hear from Matthieu Guevel, Chief of Communications at UNESCO.

Plus we talk to three people whose cultural practices have been added to the list this year: Paola Maggiulli a British-Italian cook, Lika Kat, a content creator from Kyrgyzstan and Zahra Hankir, a Lebanese author and journalist.

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Stray Kids or BlackPink? Spice Girls or Westlife? Music executives - like Simon Cowell - have been creating girl bands and boy bands for decades. And he’s about to launch a brand new competition on Netflix to find “The Next Act”. When we talk about these groups, we generally mean good-looking young women or men who’ve been brought together, and who don’t tend to write their own songs or play their own instruments. Their fans are stereotyped as being teenage girls and their mums.

Is there any truth to the belief that girl bands make better music because they are held to higher standards? The BBC’s music correspondent Mark Savage explains how pop bands have evolved over the decades. We look at the different pressures and stereotyping that girl and boy bands face and we hear from some of our BBC friends - do they prefer girl bands or boy bands and why?

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More than half a million people have been forced to leave their homes in Cambodia and Thailand. This follows rising conflict over the two countries’ shared border. Now, this is not a new dispute. In fact it’s been going on for decades. But this year things have gotten worse. A ceasefire was negotiated by US president Donald Trump in October. But it hasn’t held. Trump now says he will ‘make a phone call’ to stop the fighting.

BBC reporter Panisa Aemocha, in Bangkok, chats us through the humanitarian needs of hundreds of thousands of evacuees. We also from the BBC’s South East Asia correspondent Jonathan Head who’s at an evacuation centre, and from two young people who have fled their houses.

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The Trump administration says it has killed dozens of people in strikes on boats in the Caribbean and Pacific, which it says are from Venezuela and are carrying illegal drugs bound for the US. The US hasn’t provided any evidence or details about those who have been killed. Experts have questioned the legality of these strikes.

President Trump has alleged the Venezuelan leader, Nicolas Maduro runs a criminal group called Cartel de los Soles. Maduro denies this and has accused the US of using its "war on drugs" as an excuse to try and remove him from power to access Venezuela’s huge oil reserves.

Mimi Swaby, a BBC Global Affairs Reporter who focuses on Latin America, explains the history between the US and Venezuela and why the US is launching strikes on boats.

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Australia is banning social media for everyone under 16. The government says it’s to protect children from cyber bullying, harmful content and online predators. TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube, X (formerly Twitter) - they’re some of the platforms that are going to be banned. Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has already started kicking under-16s off its apps. An estimated 150,000 Facebook users and 350,000 Instagram accounts are expected to be affected. The social media ban will come in to effect from December 10.

Lots of teenagers are unhappy about this social media ban. But what about Australians who are now over 16? Do they wish they’d had something similar? We chat to Felix, 20, Lia, 19, and Habibat, 21, to find out.

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Across the world, footballers are hoping to be picked for their national team to play at FIFA World Cup 2026, but in Europe's top leagues, teams are picking younger players.

In the Premier League this season, just over half of players are 25 and under. The average age of footballers starting matches is now 26 years and 217 days, the youngest in Premier League history.

Being a young footballer is nothing new. But the amount of young footballers is rising. For some, like Arsenal’s Max Dowman, they are setting records. He’s the youngest Champions League player ever, debuting this season at 15-years-old.

So why is football getting younger? BBC Sport reporter Jonty Colman gets into the game, the pressures, and why clubs are chasing down young talent.

We also hear from Chifundo Mbofana, a young semi-professional footballer in Malawi, who explains how young players can inspire others.

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You’ve probably had a call from someone pretending to be your bank - or even a family member - all to find out that it’s a scam. It’s part of a global, lucrative industry: the UN estimates that countries in east and southeast Asia lost an estimated $37 billion to cyber fraud in 2023, while the United States reported losses of more than $5.6 billion. But have you ever considered that the people behind these scams are sometimes victims themselves?

Across South East Asia, in countries like Myanmar and Cambodia, thousands of people from all over the world work in ‘scam centres’. Some are forced to be there - and say they faced torture and beatings. The BBC’s South East Asia Correspondent, Jonathan Head, has been to Shwe Kokko in Myanmar, where several centres are located. He tells us what it was like, how the scam industry operates and how the authorities are trying to crack down on it. We also hear from Mwesezi, a 21 year old from Uganda, who was trafficked to Myanmar after arriving in Thailand, for what he thought was a job in the IT industry.

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Kerala claims to be the first state in India to have ended extreme poverty. Over the past four years, various government departments have worked together to provide around 64,000 families living in extreme poverty with food, shelter, medical care and scholarships for their children. But what is extreme poverty and why are some people questioning this claim?

The BBC’s Shruti Menon, who is from Kerala, explains all. She also chats us through how extreme poverty rates across India have plummeted in the past decade.

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