The Conversation Weekly

Zimbabwe is on the cusp of abolishing the death penalty after its Death Penalty Abolition Bill was approved by the senate on December 12. The bill is now sitting on the desk of Zimbabwe’s president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, a known opponent of the death penalty, waiting for his assent.In this episode, we speak to two experts on the death penalty, Carolyn Hoyle and Parvais Jabbar from the University of Oxford's Death Penalty Research Unit, who explain how Zimbabwe got here and what abolition means for both the country, and the continent. This episode was written and produced by Gemma Ware and Mend Mariwany with sound design by Michelle Macklem. Our theme music is by Neeta Sarl. Full credits for this episode are available. Sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, which is an independent, not-for-profit news organisation. And please do rate and review the show wherever you listen.Further reading Zimbabwe’s likely to abolish the death penalty: how it got here and what it means for the continentKenyan prisoners on death row weren’t deterred by the threat of the death penalty: new research findingsWhy the death penalty is losing favour in sub-Saharan Africa Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Surveys suggest that in many western democracies, political trust is at rock bottom. But is it really such a bad thing for people living in a democracy to distrust their government?In this episode, we talk to political scientist Grant Duncan, visiting scholar in politics at City St George's, University of London, about why he thinks a certain level of distrust and scepticism of powerful politicians is actually healthy for democracy. And about how populists, like Donald Trump, manage to use people’s distrust in political elites to their advantage.This episode was written and produced by Gemma Ware, Mend Mariwany and Katie Flood with sound design by Michelle Macklem. Our theme music is by Neeta Sarl. Full credits for this episode are available. Sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, which is an independent, not-for-profit news organisation. And please do rate and review the show wherever you listen.Further reading Don’t trust politicians? That may not be such a bad thingWhy people vote for politicians they know are liarsTrusting societies are overall happier – a happiness expert explains why Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

An orca that pulled along the corpse of its baby for 17 days. An opposum that plays dead to fool predators. And a chimpanzee that cleaned the teeth of its dead baby. Observations of behaviours like these suggest animals have a complex relationship with death.In this week’s episode, we speak to Susana Monsó, an associate professor of philosophy at the National Distance Education University in Madrid, Spain, about the different ways animals understand death. This episode was written and produced by Katie Flood with sound design by Michelle Macklem and our theme music is by Neeta Sarl. Full credits for this episode are available. Sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, which is an independent, not-for-profit news organisation. And please do rate and review the show wherever you listen.Further readingLos animales entienden la muerte más de lo que se pensabaWhat the grieving mother orca tells us about how animals experience deathElephant calves have been found buried – what does that mean? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The online retail giant Amazon is known for its resistance to unions. In this week’s episode, we tell the story of what happened at one warehouse in Coventry in the UK when its workers tried to gain official recognition for the GMB union, one of the country’s biggest labour unions.We talk to Tom Vickers, a sociologist at Nottingham Trent University in the UK, who spent weeks observing workers’ efforts to unionise at the warehouse as part of a research secondment with the GMB. And John Logan, a professor of labor and employment Studies at San Francisco State University in the US, explains why some companies, many of them American, are so doggedly anti-union. The episode also includes an introduction from Sarah Reid, business and economy editor at The Conversation in the UK.This episode was written and produced by Katie Flood with sound design by Michelle Macklem and our theme music is by Neeta Sarl. Full credits for this episode are available. Sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, which is an independent, not-for-profit news organisation. And please do rate and review the show wherever you listen.Further reading:I spent months with Amazon workers in Coventry before they narrowly voted against unionising. This is what I learnedAmazon still seems hell bent on turning workers into robots – here’s a better way forwardAmazon, Starbucks and the sparking of a new American union movement Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.