The Bunker – News without the nonsense

Putin thought his war on Ukraine would restore Russia to greatness in just ten days. Instead, after four and a half years of futile slaughter and almost half a million Russian soldiers killed, the unthinkable seems to be coming true. Could Russia lose in Ukraine? Could Putin go down with it? And could defeat break up the Russian Federation – the “last empire” – itself? Russian native and professor in the Department of International Relations at the Central European University in Vienna Alexander Etkind joins Alex von Tunzelmann to discuss what happens next.
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Written and presented by Alex von Tunzelmann. 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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A lab accident, a bio-attack, a global pandemic. Is this how it all ends? If you weren’t worried enough about nuclear war, the next doomsday weapon is a sinister invisible threat – and it’s a living thing. After her astonishing book Nuclear War: A Scenario reignited the global conversation about the reality of nuclear weapons, Annie Jacobson’s new book Biological War: A Scenario charts how a fast-moving pathogen could bring humanity swiftly to its knees.

She spoke to US government officials, military advisers, virologists and trawled through a mountain of declassified material to build the scenario. Annie now joins Emma Kennedy to discuss the enormity of the threat.

 • Buy Annie’s book Biological War: A Scenario 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.

• Annie speaks about her previous book Nuclear War: A Scenario on this vintage episode of The Bunker.

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

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Steve Gallant knows what’s wrong with Britain's prisons. He spent over 16 years in jail for murder and then – on his very first day release – he helped stop the 2019 London Bridge terror attack, an act of bravery which won him the Queen’s Gallantry Medal and a Royal Prerogative of Mercy.
Now a writer, speaker and prison safety consultant, he talks to Zoë Grünewald about Britain’s prison crisis; the violence, self-harm, drug use and organised crime inside prison; the collapse of education and rehabilitation; and the jails which could run out of space by November. How quickly must the Burnham government act?
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Written and presented by Zoë Grünewald. 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 up the stories of the next seven days… France and Spain suffer apocalyptic fires and mass evacuations. Will this be the tipping point for European climate policy? Andy Burnham starts to tackle the big stuff in his second week as PM, starting with an issue that has defeated successive governments: social care. Plus the aftermath of the Berlin Pride terror attack, the Greater Manchester mayoral election, the Cockroach Protests in India… and who decided the Spider-Man movie was the standard bearer of anti-woke? Ros Taylor and Andrew Harrison look at the stories that will shape the week ahead.

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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.

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Looking back on the big stories of the past seven days… Did Andy Burnham’s first week as PM go as planned? A raging Elon Musk says he’s going to make his own Odyssey with A.I. and it’ll be better than Christopher Nolan’s and he’s not mad, OK?? (Plus bonus Musk interview from The Economist). Donald Trump brings back his election interference claims, this time pointing fingers at China. And an OpenAI model breaks out containment to hack another A.I. on its own – has artificial intelligence already started going rogue?

Seth Thévoz joins Jacob Jarvis to discuss the biggest, strangest and most under-reported stories of the week.

• Elon Musk interview with Economist editor in chief Zanny Minton Beddoes courtesy of The Economist. See the whole interview here.

• Hear The Bunker on Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of The Odyssey here.

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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.

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