In The News

India has conducted what it has described as “precision strikes” in neighbouring Pakistan and Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, days after it blamed Islamabad for a deadly attack on the Indian side of the contested region that killed 26 people.At least 26 civilians were killed and 46 injured by the Indian strikes, according to Pakistani officials.The Indian government claimed that nine non-military targets had been hit, in what it called “Operation Sindoor”.The military operation by India represents yet another bloody chapter in the decades-long simmering conflict over Kashmir, often called the Switzerland of India because of its lakes, forests and snow-capped mountains.The contested nature of the territory means that Kashmir is one of the most militarised zones in the world.To understand what happened this week – and why – it’s necessary to look back to 1947 when Pakistan and India became independent from Britain and when both claimed Kashmir.Shashank Joshi, defence Eeditor with The Economist magazine, explains the background and explores the fears of further hostilities in one of the world’s most dangerous flashpoints.Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Declan Conlon.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the early hours of Monday morning, a drone carrying a pipe bomb, a viable explosive device, crashed beside a family's home in North County Dublin. But who was controlling the drone and who or what was the intended target? Irish Times security and crime editor Conor Lally reports. Presented by Sorcha Pollak, produced by Suzanne Brennan. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Chad now hosts 1.3 million forcibly displaced people, according to the UNHCR, despite itself being one of the world’s poorest countries. More than half of these refugees are Sudanese, mostly women and children, who have fled the fighting between rival militaries which erupted in April 2023.It has been called “the forgotten war” because of the lack of media coverage and global attention particularly on the plight of the refugees who live in sprawling refugee camps.The reasons why so few journalists have gone to the African country to report on the war and the massive displacement of Sundanese people include the difficulty in getting there and safety issues.Two Irish Times journalists, writer Patrick Freyne and videographer Chris Maddaloni, travelled to East Chad in April to report from the refugee camps there.Their trip was supported by the Simon Cumbers Media Fund.They tell In the News about what they saw and heard and explore why the world has turned its back on this war.Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Suzanne Brennan. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Note: This episode was originally published in August 2023. In July 2023, four relatives attended a family lunch at the home of Erin Patterson, a mother of two from Leongatha in Australia. Within days of the lunch, three of the guests were dead, with a fourth left fighting for his life in hospital. A beef wellington that was served for lunch on the day is suspected to have contained poisonous death cap mushrooms. But why were they in there? A court in Australia must now decipher whether it was simply a tragic accident or if there was something more sinister at play. Patterson's trial opened last week in Victoria, Australia and is expected to last six weeks. She is facing three murder charges and one of attempted murder. In 2023, following Patterson’s arrest, Bernice Harrison spoke to John Ferguson, a journalist with The Australian who outlined the details of the case; while retired homicide investigator Charlie Bezzina, who has worked on some of Australia’s most high-profile cases explained the challenges for police in a case such as this. Produced by Suzanne Brennan. Presented by Bernice Harrison. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On Monday, the unthinkable happened: Spain and Portugal experienced an electricity blackout. Just after midday the lights went out, wifi went down, trains stopped, airports closed, ATMs froze and everyday life for millions of citizens ground to a halt. Both countries quickly ruled out the possibility that the outage was caused by a cyberattack. Human error was also discounted. Critics of Spain’s ambitious green energy policy were quick to lay the blame on renewables. Nuclear power proponents suggested the outage was the inevitable result of moving away from nuclear.Power started to be restored on Monday evening, and by Tuesday morning the Spanish government reported that more than 90 per cent of supply had returned, with a similar percentage restored in Portugal.The costs are now being counted; the CEOE employers’ association estimating the economic cost at about €1.6 billion. Self-employed workers may have lost as much as €1.3 billion, according to the ATA workers’ association.But what caused the blackout? And how is it possible that days later the authorities still don’t know for sure?Contributor to The Irish Times Guy Hedgecoe was on a train in Madrid when the blackout began. He tells In the News what happened next and explores the reasons and reactions to the unprecedented outage that has shaken confidence in the energy supply.Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by John Casey. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For Kneecap’s growing fan base, the band’s support of Palestine as they performed at the Coachella music festival in California last month didn’t raise a ripple of surprise.The Belfast-based rappers who sing mostly in Irish have been consistent in their vocal opposition to Israel’s response to the October 7th Hamas attack.But an American backlash coincided with UK police investigations into comments made by members of the group during concerts.One appeared to be shouting “up Hamas, up Hizbullah”.Footage from another concert appeared to show one of the group shouting “the only good Tory is a dead Tory” and “Kill your local MP”.Kneecap have since apologised to the families of two murdered British MPs. But they also insist the controversy has been manufactured in retaliation against their pro-Palestine stance and to distract from the real story of what's happening in Gaza.Media columnist Hugh Linehan looks at the controversies surrounding Kneecap, how they have responded and whether they are right to argue this is not a story worth covering.Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Declan Conlon. This episode was edited on May 1, 2025 to remove a reference to Kneecap concerts being cancelled. None of the group's US concerts has been cancelled.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Since taking over the Department of Justice, Jim O'Callaghan has embarked on a firmer, more hardline approach to immigration in this country.New legislation brought forward by the Minister this week and approved by Government, will speed up the time it takes to process an application for asylum, reducing the entire process from years to just a matter of months.However, the number of people seeking asylum in Ireland have already dropped considerably when compared with this time last year.A total of 3,021 asylum applications were made between January and March 2025, compared to 5,162 during the first three months of 2024, a drop of more than 40 per cent.Why have the numbers seeking international protection in this countries fallen and is this decrease reflected across Europe?And how much do the Government’s immigration policies, such increased deportation orders and the expansion of its ‘safe list’ of countries, actually impact whether or not people come to Ireland seeking safety?Immigration lawyer Cathal Malone discusses the drop in numbers and whether Government policies are responsible for this change.Presented by Sorcha Pollak. Produced by Suzanne Brennan. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On Monday, a jury of seven women and five men was sworn in for the trial of Richard Satchwell at Dublin’s Central Criminal Court.The 58-year-old is accused of murdering his wife Tina Satchwell, at their home in Youghal Co. Cork in March 2017. The trial is expected to take six weeks.Gardaí initially treated Ms Satchwell’s disappearance as a Missing Person’s Case, but it was upgraded to a murder inquiry when gardaí found human remains buried under the floor in the couple’s home on Grattan Street in October 2023. Mr Satchwell has pleaded not guilty to the murder of his wife.Who is Richard Satchwell, how did he meet his wife and what happened when Tina went missing in 2017?Irish Times southern correspondent Barry Roche discusses the story of the Satchwell couple and the search that followed Tina Satchwell’s disappearance.Presented by Sorcha Pollak. Produced by Suzanne Brennan.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When Nuria Zyden travelled from her home in Dublin to a conference in Sarajevo she became aware that two Chinese men were following her. They were on her plane and they travelled to the hotel where she was staying. The conference was the World Uyghur Congress and she was there to represent the Irish Uyghur Cultural Association which she had founded in 2024 as a way to bring Irish Uyghurs together.She was not entirely surprised.Zyden is a Uyghur, a Turkic Muslim from Xinjiang – a minority that has been subjected to massive surveillance and repression by the Chinese government over the past decade.The mother of three who has lived in Ireland since 2009 and is an Irish citizen, gets calls from the security services in China complaining about her political activities and suggesting she work with them.Her contact with her elderly mother in China is, she says, severely curtailed and monitored by the authorities.Moving away to live and work in Dublin has not protected her from the reach of the Chinese Communist Party.She explains how this impacts on her life and her determination to give a voice to the millions of Uyghurs in China who cannot defend themselves.Irish Times journalist Colm Keena with his colleagues at the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has been investigating how the Chinese government monitors its citizens abroad for a major new report called China Targets.He explains how Irish citizen Naria Zyden became the victim of transnational repression.Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Suzanne Brennan. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On April 16th, the Supreme Court in London ruled unanimously that “the terms ‘woman’ and ‘sex’ in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex”.The ruling came in response to a legal dispute between the activist group For Women Scotland and the Scottish government over whether trans people with gender recognition certificates (GRC) identifying their gender as female were considered as having the sex of a woman.For Women Scotland had argued that the sex-based protections in the Act should only apply to people born female and that sex is “immutable biological state”.The judgment, which ran to more than 80 pages, found that “the concept of sex is binary” – there is a female and a male.It went on to say that the legislation gives transgender people “protection, not only against discrimination through the protected characteristic of gender reassignment, but also against direct discrimination, indirect discrimination and harassment in substance in their acquired gender”.The judgment has come as a blow to the transgender community, particularly to trans women who fear it will marginalise them further.Irish Times London correspondent Mark Paul explains the ruling and its implications.Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Aideen Finnegan and John Casey.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.