The European Union was formed in the years after the Second World War to secure peace and promote economic progress. It aimed to achieve that by ensuring that countries worked together. But that optimistic vision has now been shaken. There is mounting anxiety about whether the EU can hold together. Some are even saying that the EU is facing an existential crisis. That’s because the elections in May are likely to bring in another wave of populist politicians promoting nationalist agendas. The Inquiry will detail the fissures that have been exposed in recent years. One cause has been migration from countries outside the EU and the pressures caused by free movement within its borders. The severe economic downturn has threatened unity too. Kavita Puri explores whether there are moments in the European Union’s history when, had different decisions been made, the EU might have hung together better.

Presenter: Kavita Puri Producer: Rosamund Jones

Image: A shredded European Union flag flutters in the wind. Credit: EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/Getty Images

Driverless cars powered by renewable energy whisking their healthy and happy citizens between gleaming skyscrapers, criss-crossing efficient roads. That’s the dream of many so called smart cities.

The trend for ‘smart cities’ has grown immensely over the last decade and their definition has evolved too. Hundreds are planned or are already being built around the world, in both rich and poor countries.

From Google’s Sidewalk city to Eko Atlantic in Nigeria, tech companies are seeking to tame our ever more urban world.

But critics worry that instead of being clever solutions they simply reinforce the existing poverty and inequality. How can a tech giant solve the problems of the developing world when people need water not wifi? We ask, are smart cities dumb?

Presenter: Kavita Puri Producer: Jordan Dunbar

Image: Sunrise in New York City Credit: Gary Hershorn/Getty Images

Tens of thousands of children have been forced to join militia or terror groups in recent years. The Inquiry looks at conflicts around the world to find out what it takes to rehabilitate a child who has witnessed or taken part in violent extremism. We hear from experts who say it is as important to mend the community as much as the child. And we consider the position of stateless children, including those who have never been registered anywhere and those whose nationality is in dispute. If they end up belonging nowhere, can they ever recover?

Presenter: Feranak Amidi Producer: Rosamund Jones

Image: Children holding guns Credit: Mohammed Hamoud/Getty Images

Suicide is the second leading cause of death among 15-29 year olds globally. But innovative and unexpected ways to tackle this public health issue are emerging.

From Nigeria to Finland, ordinary people and experts are putting their own experiences and expertise to use in coming up with ways that help prevent deaths in their communities. School timetables, video games and social media are among some of the new ways being trialled to cut deaths and break the taboo surrounding youth suicide. We ask what can be done to stop young people taking their own lives?

Presenter: Kavita Puri Producer: Lucy Proctor

(A young man watches the sunrise. Photo credit: Chalabala/ Getty Images)

Three million people in Yemen have been forced from their homes, and the dead are estimated to number many tens of thousands. But, compared to similar conflicts, global attention has been slight. The Inquiry asks why. It explores how the media has told the Yemeni story, and the impact valuable arms sales have had on international pressure – or the lack of it – to bring the conflict to an end. There are other factors too. The conflict in Yemen has created countless refugees, but they have not fled beyond the country’s borders. And Yemen’s divisive history has created a diaspora community that struggles to speak with one voice. What will it take to shine a brighter light on Yemen?

Presenter: Kavita Puri Producer: Rosamund Jones

(A woman holds her baby who is suffering from severe malnutrition, in Marib, Yemen, December 2018. Photo Credit: Said Ibicioglu/Getty Images)

The tech giant has had a meteoric rise over the last ten years. It has overtaken Apple in the global smartphone market, and its equipment is in telecommunications systems in 170 countries worldwide. But Huawei now finds itself at the centre of a global scandal.

Its chief financial officer - the daughter of the company’s founder - is under house arrest in Canada, accused of selling telecom equipment to Iran in contravention of US sanctions.

A week later, a US court charged the whole company with bank fraud, obstruction of justice and theft of technology from rival T-Mobile.

The company has been banned in New Zealand and Australia, and there are moves in the US to stop government employees from buying their products.

Critics say if it wins the contracts for the new 5G network being created globally, it could give the Chinese government control over everything from smart phones, to cars, to pacemakers in other countries.

So why has the success story soured? This week, we ask: what’s so scary about Huawei?

Presenter: Kavita Puri Producer: Jordan Dunbar

More children than ever before attend school – so why have reading rates been so slow to improve? In some countries teachers are absent from class one day every week, in others early years education barely exists. And many children are taught to read in languages they do not speak. The Inquiry explores what reading skills get measured, and whether they are the right ones. And it asks how the quality of literacy education could best be improved.

Presenter: Kavita Puri Producer: Rosamund Jones

(image: Young school boy writing on a blackboard in Kenya. Photo Credit:Anthony Asael/Getty images)

In November 2018, a Chinese scientist stunned the world by announcing that he had successfully edited the genes of two embryos. These twins had their DNA changed to try and make them resistant to HIV, it was only successful in one.

Shock and outrage followed as the media proclaimed that the age of the designer baby had arrived and we had opened a door that could never be closed. The Chinese government ordered an inquiry and the scientist rumoured to be put under house arrest.

For many in the genetics community it had only been a matter of time until this happened. The game changer came in the form of a new technology known as CRISPR, a relatively simple and cheap way of changing genes. One that could be used in fertility clinics worldwide.

Does this now mean an age of elite super humans could be born to the ultra-rich? Children created with superior traits, tall, beautiful and hyper intelligent.

The truth is not so simple. This week we ask: should we fear ‘designer babies’?

Producer: Jordan Dunbar Presenter: Michael Blastland

(picture: foetus in utero /Getty images)

Ever since Donald Trump took office in 2016 his critics have been focussed on getting rid of him. As the Mueller probe into Russian collusion in the presidential election heads into its last six months, several members of President Trump’s inner circle have been convicted of serious crimes. For some, it’s only a matter of time before Trump himself is implicated. For others, the evidence so far is simply not substantial enough.

With Democrats now in control of Congress, the votes are there to impeach Trump and send him for trial in the Senate. But what would it take to get the two thirds majority needed to remove him from office?

Producer: Lucy Proctor Presenter: Victoria Uwonkunda

(Photo: Protesters outside of the Fox News Channel headquarters demand the resignation of President Donald Trump. Credit: Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Human activity is sending animals and plants extinct. But there is a fightback going on. Scientists all over the world are coming up with radical solutions to save them - from transplanting polar bears, to “de-extincting” a very strange frog. And experts say each one of us can make a difference.

So is it too late to save the planet, or can we stop a mass extinction?

Contributors include:

Dr Simon Clulow – Macquarie University, Australia Dr Karen Poiani – CEO, Island Conservation Professor Jane Hill – University of York, UK Professor Thomas Elmqvist – Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University

Presenter: Feranak Amidi Producer: Beth Sagar-Fenton

(image: Romeo, the Sehuencas water frog / Courtesy of Global Wildlife Conservation, Austin Tx USA)

This week we’re looking at nothing less than the state of life on earth. The planet has seen mass extinctions before, periods of widespread and dramatic species loss. Some now fear human activity is driving another one: land cleared for farms, homes and roads; waters filled with pollution and emptied of fish; skies choked with gasses causing climate change. But does it add up to a mass extinction? In the first of a two-part series, we examine the evidence of species loss and compare it with the geological record. Presenter: Neal Razzell Producers: Josephine Casserly and Siobhan O’Connell

(Image: Dinosaur skeleton, Credit: Getty images)

Millions of us take a vitamin tablet every day - how did they become so popular? We follow the rise and rise of vitamins from their discovery just a century ago, to the multi-billion dollar market of today. The story of how the vitamin supplement entered our daily lives takes us from the targeted guilt-tripping of concerned mothers, to the use of vitamins as a weapon against the Nazis, via a plan for vitamin doughnuts.

Experts question whether most of us need to take them at all – so how did we get hooked on vitamins?

Contributors include:

Dr Lisa Rogers – World Health Organization Catherine Price – Author of Vitamania: How Vitamins Revolutionized the Way We Think About Food Dr Salim Al-Gailani - Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge Matthew Oster – Head of Consumer Health, Euromonitor International

Presenter: Kavita Puri Producer: Beth Sagar-Fenton

(Photo: a woman shopping at 'Mr Vitamins', a chain of supplement outlets in Sydney, Australia. Credit: Saeed Khan/Getty Images)