Audio

Morning News: NATO’s Resurgence, Italy Elects A President, Nuns On TikTok

Our correspondent speaks with Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s secretary-general, who says the alliance’s involvement in de-escalating Russia tensions is a sign of its resurgent relevance.

After tortuous votes, Italy’s lawmakers elected a president: the incumbent who did not want the job. No posts have changed, but the political balance surely has. And we meet the nuns racking up followers on TikTok. 

Morning News: Beijing Olympics Advertisers, Commodity Price Rise

A.M. Edition for Feb. 1. Four years ago, Coca-Cola, Visa and Procter & Gamble loudly promoted their sponsorship of the Winter Olympics. 

Now, sponsors of the coming Beijing Games are keeping a lower profile. WSJ’s Stu Woo explains why that is, and why other coming international competitions present a similar challenge. Luke Vargas hosts.

Morning News: Ukraine Crisis, Emir Of Qatar, Independent Venue Week

We hear the latest on the crisis in Ukraine and discuss the significance of the emir of Qatar’s visit to Washington. Plus: what’s making headlines in business and the UK celebrates Independent Venue Week.

Sunday Morning: Stories And News Headlines From Zurich, London & Tokyo

Our weekend programme comes live from Monocle’s radio studio in Zürich, where Tyler Brûlé and a panel of special-guest thought leaders discuss key topics in front of a studio audience.

Shakespeare & Company: Patrick Hastings On His James Joyce ‘Ulysses’ Guide

Saturday Morning: News And Stories From London

Georgina Godwin sets the tone for the weekend. We gauge the mood on the ground in Kyiv as tensions with Russia increase, review the day’s papers and Monocle’s Andrew Tuck shares his thoughts for this weekend.

Science: Fecal Pills That Treat Gut Infections, Squirrel Hibernations

On this week’s show: A pill derived from human feces treats recurrent gut infections, and how a squirrel’s microbiome supplies nitrogen during hibernation.

First up this week, Staff Writer Kelly Servick joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss putting the bacterial benefits of human feces in a pill. The hope is to avoid using fecal transplants to treat recurrent gut infections caused by the bacterium Clostridium difficile.

Also this week, Hannah Carey, a professor in the department of comparative biosciences within the school of veterinary medicine at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, talks with Sarah about how ground squirrels are helped by their gut microbes during hibernation.

Morning News: Ukraine Politics, China ‘Zero-Covid’ Policy, Portugal

Monocle’s news editor Chris Cermak gives us the latest from Kyiv on a tumultuous week in Ukrainian politics.

Plus: an update from Beijing on China’s “zero-Covid” policy, Portugal’s snap election and Andrew Mueller on why Chile has fallen out of love with Britpop band Blur.

Morning News: Ukraine On Alert, China & Taiwan, NASA Space Telescope

We get the latest from Kyiv on the crisis in Ukraine and discuss the fallout from Chinese military incursions in Taiwanese airspace. Plus: Nasa’s space telescope reaches its destination and we visit a haunted house in Istanbul.

Podcasts: ‘The Arctic Story Hunter’ (NatGeo)

What’s it like to grow up underneath the aurora borealis, on the shores of the Arctic Ocean? Photographer Evgenia Arbugaeva describes leaving—and returning to—Tiksi, a Siberian coastal village that during her childhood became a ghost town in the wake of the Soviet collapse. That experience taught her to find beauty in unexpected places—riding reindeer with nomadic herders, visiting isolated Arctic weather stations, and following mammoth ivory hunters.