On January 8, as thousands of Iranians took to the streets in nationwide protests, the government cut off the internet. Under cover of digital darkness, the Iranian regime launched a brutal and deadly crackdown against anti-government protesters.

After three weeks of internet blackout, reports from web traffic monitor Netblocks suggest that the internet is slowly coming back online but predominantly for government-approved users.

Yet for most of the shutdown, banks and some local government websites and apps still worked. And that’s because Iran is developing its own, national internet, cut off from the rest of the world.

In this episode, we speak to Amin Naeni, a PhD candidate researching digital authoritarianism at Deakin University in Australia, about how Iran built one of the world’s most sophisticated systems of digital control.

This episode was written and produced by Mend Mariwany and Gemma Ware with editing help from Katie Flood. Mixing by Michelle Macklem and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Read the full credits for this episode and sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.

If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.

• Iran’s universities have long been a battleground, where protests happen and students fight for the future
• Iran’s biggest centres of protest are also experiencing extreme pollution and water shortages
• This is the playbook the Iranian regime uses to crack down on protests – but will it work this time?
• Why Iran can’t afford to shut down the internet forever – even if the world doesn’t act
• Iran’s latest internet blackout extends to phones and Starlink

Mentioned in this episode:

The Making of an Autocrat

Search "The Conversation Weekly" for our new series: The Making of an Autocrat. Is America watching its democracy unravel in real time? In The Making of an Autocrat from The Conversation, six of the world’s pre-eminant scholars reveal the recipe for authoritarian rule. From capturing a party, to controlling the military, Donald Trump is borrowing from the playbook of strongmen thoughout history. This is the story of how democracies falter — and what might happen next.

In the summer of 1959, a group of American soldiers began carving trenches in the Greenland ice sheet. Those trenches would become the snow covered tunnels of Camp Century, a secret Arctic research base powered by a nuclear reactor.

Camp Century operated for six years, during which time the scientists based there managed to drilling a mile down to collect a unique set of ice cores. But by 1966, it had been abandoned, deemed too expensive and difficult to maintain.

Today, Donald Trump’s territorial ambitions for Greenland continue to cause concern and confusion in Europe, particularly for Denmark and Greenlanders themselves who insist their island is not for sale.

One of the attractions of Greenland is the gleam of its rich mineral wealth, particularly rare earth minerals. Now that Greenland’s ice sheet is melting due to global warming, will this make the mineral riches easier to get at?

In this episode, we talk to Paul Bierman, a geologist and expert on Greenland’s ice at the University of Vermont in US. He explains why the history of what happened to Camp Century – and the secrets of its ice cores, misplaced for decades, but now back under the microscope – help us to understand why it’s not that simple.

This episode was written and produced by Mend Mariwany and Gemma Ware with editing help from Katie Flood. Mixing by Michelle Macklem and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Read the full credits for this episode and sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.

If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.

• Why Greenland is indispensable to global climate science
• Greenland is rich in natural resources – a geologist explains why
• Greenland: Staying with the Polar Inuit. How a secret military base helped trigger the silent collapse of an Arctic world
• The US military has cared about climate change since the dawn of the Cold War – for good reason

Mentioned in this episode:

The Making of an Autocrat

Search "The Conversation Weekly" for our new series: The Making of an Autocrat. Is America watching its democracy unravel in real time? In The Making of an Autocrat from The Conversation, six of the world’s pre-eminant scholars reveal the recipe for authoritarian rule. From capturing a party, to controlling the military, Donald Trump is borrowing from the playbook of strongmen thoughout history. This is the story of how democracies falter — and what might happen next.

In a moment being celebrated by global marine conservationists, a new UN high seas treaty comes into force on January 17 providing a new way to govern the world's oceans.

The UN high seas treaty will allow for the creation of protected areas in international waters, like national parks. But the treaty has some grey areas – notably its powers to regulating fishing in international waters, and mining of the seabed.

In this episode we speak to Callum Roberts, professor of marine conservation at the University of Exeter in the UK, about how the treaty came to be and the challenges now facing its implementation.

This episode was written and produced by Mend Mariwany and Gemma Ware. Mixing by Michelle Macklem and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Read the full credits for this episode and sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.

If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.

• Global power struggles over the ocean’s finite resources call for creative diplomacy
• Targets to save 30% of the ocean by 2030 aren’t being met, new report reveals
• The historic High Seas Treaty is almost reality. Here’s what it would mean for ocean conservation
• A landmark treaty could protect the high seas – and spark new conflicts

Mentioned in this episode:

The Making of an Autocrat

Search "The Conversation Weekly" for our new series: The Making of an Autocrat. Is America watching its democracy unravel in real time? In The Making of an Autocrat from The Conversation, six of the world’s pre-eminant scholars reveal the recipe for authoritarian rule. From capturing a party, to controlling the military, Donald Trump is borrowing from the playbook of strongmen thoughout history. This is the story of how democracies falter — and what might happen next.