This is a story about a boy called Elliott – trapped in time.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Over a handful of chaotic days this summer, Western forces withdrew from Afghanistan. The legacy of the decision to leave after 20 years has been wretched for many Afghan people, and a brutal lesson for the UK. In this two-part Slow Newscast, Matthew d'Ancona charts events as they unfolded. Part 1: As the Taliban closed in on Kabul, Britain found itself frozen out of decision making and incapable of influencing events.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In Kabul, the Taliban’s takeover was assured. In London, an ignominious retreat, and the betrayal of former comrades in the Afghan army, was more than a group of ex-soldiers, now MPs, could stomach...  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Who are the people behind a spate of multi-million dollar ransomware attacks on financial institutions, schools and hospitals? When Nicky Woolf began to investigate the highest-profile ransomware outfit, REvil, it was almost completely hidden from view. But then... the cyber-police started to uncover its secrets.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Since 2016, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been held hostage in Iran. Ceri Thomas investigates how a long-forgotten debt could be the real reason behind her incarceration.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The reputation of Sheikh Mohammed of Dubai has been tarnished beyond repair by the way he treated his wife Haya and daughter Latifa. At least we know about what they went through. There's another daughter - Shamsa - who was the first to try to escape the Sheikh's clutches. She, and her story, have almost vanished.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Sweet Bobby is a new series by Tortoise. Kirat is a successful local radio presenter. Online she’s contacted by a man she vaguely knows called Bobby, and they start chatting. Slowly, they become close… and she’s reeled in to a scam of epic proportions...  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

When a young woman travelling across the US disappeared, an army of digital detectives and citizen journalists jumped on the case. When she was found murdered, they went into overdrive. In this week’s Slow Newscast, we examine a true crime story happening in real time.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

It started with a high-pitched noise. Then, American diplomats started getting sick. Nausea, dizziness, confusion. Across the world, this strange syndrome is spreading. Is it an attack? A sophisticated weapon? In this episode, we investigate the mystery of the immaculate concussion.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

More than 20 years after emptying the Russian state treasure of hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of diamonds and gold, Andrei Kozlenok breaks his silence with an even more extraordinary tale. But why?  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

When Communism collapsed, a young man was tasked with selling Russia’s diamonds to the highest bidder. Then, he went on the run with $600m. He was missing for more than 20 years, until reporter Giles Whittell found him, last year. This is the riotous story of Golden Ada – the origin story of Russia's kleptocracy.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

It’s been said often enough: the pandemic has been like a war. Economically, on civil liberties and the deaths it has caused, it’s hard to find a better comparison. And just like a war it places responsibilities on companies that make vital supplies which are different from peacetime – to profit, but not to profiteer  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Plenty of people take wrong turns in their lives. But so too can justice systems. John Crilly and hundreds more have been the victims of the legal doctrine of Joint Enterprise and how it has been applied for the past 30 years.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Joe Biden’s life has been marked by grief, most recently at the death of his beloved son, Beau. And Beau Biden’s legacy isn’t only personal, it’s political, too.   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In Donald Trump's America, thousands of children who crossed the border from Mexico were separated from their parents. It's now clear that some of those families - perhaps hundreds - may never be reunited.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

A year ago, journalist Joshi Herrmann got an anonymous tip. It sent him to a website claiming to have evidence of serious corruption, grooming gangs and “cartels” operating in Oldham. From there, Joshi stumbled across a remarkable story about how online conspiracies are poisoning local politics, spilling out from paranoid corners of the internet all the way to the ballot box. And at the heart of it all is on one rather angry man, who calls himself “the recusant”...  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The remarkable story of Rohullah Yakobi, a daring escape, and a 20-year war.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Over 20 years, a simple email newsletter has reshaped celebrity culture. In a special edition of the Slow Newscast, Claudia Williams tells the story of Popbitch.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

With human rights groups demanding a diplomatic boycott of next year’s Winter Olympics in Beijing, we look back to Moscow 1980, and ask what’s the lesson of the most notorious Olympic boycott in modern times?  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In the internet age, anyone with a camera can make and sell porn. But what happens when a shoot goes wrong? In the second episode in our Porn Planet series investigating online pornography, we look into the world of porn production  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The truth of an origin story has never mattered more: did Covid cross to humans from an animal, or did it escape from a laboratory? The arguments have only grown fiercer. And in the fog of war, the World Health Organisation lost its way  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

How the richest nations on the planet promised to vaccinate every adult, everywhere, against Covid. They failed.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This is a story about one student, one case, and a serious sexual assault. It takes place at Cambridge University, but the case – of a botched process that lets a young woman down – could have happened almost anywhere...  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In the final episode of Left to die: Nick Alexander tells the story of his torturous escape from the convoy – and the question left lying in the dust of the attack: who, really, abandoned them all?  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Episode 2 of our series investigating what happened at the Amarula Hotel: the story of Wesley and his brother Adrian, who escape in a car and are ambushed by insurgents as they race to safety.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In March, Islamist militants attacked the town of Palma, in northern Mozambique – the site of a $20bn gas project. They besieged a hotel, where more than 200 civilians were taking shelter, waiting to be rescued. But help never came. In our new three-part series, we investigate why these men, women and children were abandoned.Ep1: An Islamist insurgency hits. Nick and Wes, two South African contractors, race to the Amarula Hotel. Over three horrifying days, it becomes clear: no one is coming to help.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The Slow Newscast takes news slowly. Each week, we tell one investigative story. Your host is Basia Cummings.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In little more than a year - the year of the pandemic - Anand Menon lost his mother, father, brother and sister, but not to Covid. Grief and loss have been a part of so many lives this year, but none more so than Anand's.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Sophie Bennett took her own life in a care facility that was crumbling around her. Paul Caruana Galizia and Chris Cook investigate what went wrong at a charity led by a famous mental health pioneer.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

After Boris Johnson and Carrie Symonds’ wedding, there are now two powerful married couples in Number 10. Meet the other: Munira and Dougie...  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

As dozens of women accuse the world’s largest porn company of profiting from their abuse, listen to the full story of how we traced its secretive owner to his London mansion  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In the German city of Chemnitz, political extremists aren’t just present – they’re organised. And they’re trying to spread their creed from ramshackle buildings to the rest of the country  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The story of a dying lake, a forgotten community and the hunt for a green future. Host Basia Cummings is joined by reporters Miranda Green and Lucy Sherriff to investigate.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

When A 12-year-old Somali refugee drowned in the River Irwell in 2019, suspicion and rumour soon followed. In this episode, Basia is joined by reporter Nimo Omer to investigate what happened to Shukri Abdi.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

A life like Harvey Proctor’s has lessons for the police and the media. And for all of us: what are we prepared to do to people we turn into hate figures?  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Harvey Proctor was caught in the middle of a deadly serious police investigation, Operation Midland. How could he fight it?  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

It’s tough to survive one huge, public scandal in your life. Two is almost unheard of. But that was about to happen to Harvey Proctor.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Harvey Proctor was a Conservative MP, notorious in the 1980s for his right-wing views. Until he was entrapped by a newspaper in a ‘gay sex scandal’ and his life started to unravel.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The mysterious story of Gulf Livestock 1, a 12,000-tonne ship carrying 6,000 cows that disappeared without a trace in the Pacific Ocean.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We're launching a brand new podcast from Tortoise called ThinkIn with James Harding. In this week's Slow Newscast, a preview.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week we introduce a new podcast, and re-up an episode from our archive on the hero lawyer turned anti-vaxxer who has spent the pandemic spreading medical misinformation.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

An unlikely scandal... in the world of embroidery. How a highly-paid male CEO went to war with a group of embroidery-loving women, who decided to get together and fight back.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Who is Keir Starmer? There’s the basic answer: he’s the leader of Britain’s Labour party. But beyond that? We investigate his past.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Reaching the summit of K2 in winter had never been done before. In January, a group of mountaineers – professionals, amateurs, social media adventurers – attempted it. It ended in triumph… and tragedy.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

As he returned to Moscow after months recovering from a nerve agent attack, Alexei Navalny released a remarkable YouTube video – and with it, sowed the seeds for a new Russian revolution by meme.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Covid-19 may be losing the vaccine battle, but as the virus evolves fast to form new variants, the war is most definitely not over...  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Sir Jim Ratcliffe is one of Britain's richest men. Since Brexit he's made a show of his patriotism. Is it for real?  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The myth of Gamestop was that it was a David and Goliath struggle. The truth was very different.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Geoffrey Woolf spent longer in hospital after Covid-19 than almost anyone - 306 days. His son Nicky tells the story of what he went through, and how it changed everything.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Power, greed, and a $65m 'gift': the story of King Juan Carlos of Spain and Corinna, his lover  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.