The Bunker – News without the nonsense

Looking back on the big stories of the past seven days… Donald Trump is once again cosying up to his dictator bestie Kim Jong Un – what’s he got up his sleeve? Plus: Burnham fleshes out plans to tackle homelessness and Zelenskyy’s former defence minister calls for Ukraine election… Rafael Behr and Jacob Jarvis discuss the biggest, strangest and most under-reported stories of the week.

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Written and presented by Managing Editor Jacob Jarvis. Producer: James Liddell. Audio production: Jade Bailey. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Music by Kenny Dickinson. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production.

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How did we get the modern Middle East? Who shaped it and does the term even make sense in our current era? Seth Thévoz speaks to Simon Sebag Montefiore author of The Cauldron: the Making of the Modern Middle East about how the region has been changed over time and what key players led us to what we know today.

 • Buy Simon’s’s book The Cauldron: the Making of the Modern Middle East from our affiliate bookshop and you’ll help fund The Bunker by earning us a small commission for every sale. Bookshop.org’s fees help support independent bookshops too.

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Written and presented by Seth Thévoz. Produced by: Managing Editor Jacob Jarvis and James Liddell. Audio production: Jade Bailey. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Music by Kenny Dickinson. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production.

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We live in a surveillance world, but what is it doing to us? To give one small example, hackers figured out Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson’s movements by tracking his bodyguard’s exercise data. From CCTV cameras on high streets to smart doorbells at home, surveillance has become an inescapable part of modern life – something we both demand and fear. How did we get this way? And what have we given up in exchange? Professor of social anthropology at the University of Oxford Ruben Andersson tells Zing Tsjeng how Big Security rose to power – and whether it’s failing to keep us out of harm’s way.
• Buy Ruben’s book Age of Security: The Rise of a Global Obsession from our affiliate bookshop and you’ll help fund the podcast by earning us a small commission for every sale. Bookshop.org’s fees help support independent bookshops too.

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Written and presented by Zing Tsjeng. Producer: James Liddell. Audio production: Tom Taylor and Chris Jones. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Music by Kenny Dickinson. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production.
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Silicon Valley’s overlords have completely lost their minds. Gil Durán, Kamala Harris’ former communications director and now a journalist, says Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and the rest of the tech oligarchs have a severe case of “billonaire psychosis” – where unchecked wealth and influence detach them from reality. Now democracy itself is getting in the way of their own bizarre, apocalyptic visions. Are we stuck with their vision of the future? Is pushing back against them futile? Will a vote for the Democrats make this all go away? And is money really the root of all evil? Gil joins Emma Kennedy to discuss his new book The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and The War on Democracy, and how we got here.

• Buy Gil’s book The Nerd Reich from our affiliate bookshop and you’ll help fund the podcast by earning us a small commission for every sale. Bookshop.org’s fees help support independent bookshops too.

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Written and presented by Emma Kennedy. Producer: James Liddell. Audio production: Robin Leeburn. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Music by Kenny Dickinson. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production.
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Setting out the stories of the week ahead… The shocking death of Jason Arday reignites questions about the press’s relentless pursuit of the story, Cambridge University and Simon & Schuster’s failure to properly look into the academic’s life story, and the general public’s prurient curiosity. Was it a legitimate story investigation, a persecution or even more complex? Plus: as the heatwave breaks, what have we learned? Trump treats the Navy as a floating septic tank. And the Premier League is back, thank God.

Ros Taylor and Andrew Harrison look at the stories that will shape the next seven days.

Support us on Patreon - www.patreon.com/bunkercast

Written and presented by Andrew Harrison. Audio production by Jade Bailey. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Artwork by James Parrett. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production.

www.podmasters.co.uk
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.