Show Notes
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
More from If You're Listening
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 in the global economy, from your mortgage to a company’s loan. When investors lose faith in a government’s ability to manage its money, as happened under the UK’s Liz Truss in 2022, bond yields spike, and borrowing gets more expensive for everyone, instantly. Trump’s tariffs, his war in Iran and his promised $5,000 dividend cheques have investors nervous all over again, and bond yields are climbing. Unlike Liz Truss, Trump has nobody above him to sack him over it. So who actually pays when the bond market loses faith in 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
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 meteorology. Farmers, construction companies and brides-to-be all turned to these unorthodox weathermen, who charted the cycles of the planets and the spots on the surface of the sun. Today, producer Jess O’Callaghan tells Matt about the wild west of weather forecasting, before we really knew how to do 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
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
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
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