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The one big story. Making sense of the news with our BBC experts around the world

The one big story. Making sense of the news with our experts around the world. Insights you can trust, Monday to Friday, from the BBC. With Katya Adler.

The one big story. Making sense of the news with our experts around the world. Insights you can trust, Monday to Friday, from the BBC.  Episodes will be ready by 10:30 GMT.

Host Katya Adler and our BBC teams guide you through one major global news story each episode.

From Beijing to Boston, Baghdad to Bangalore, our unrivalled reach will take you beyond the headlines to help understand and explore what’s happening.

The Global News Podcast brings you the latest updates and, on The Global Story, we will drill deep into a single story.

From the climate emergency, to the burning questions around Artificial Intelligence, to the movements of money and markets, and the power of the ballot and the bullet.

Katya Adler has been a BBC correspondent and editor for more than 25 years, covering conflicts in the Middle East, political and economic crises in Europe, and drug cartels in Mexico. 

The Global Story team would like to hear your stories and experiences on the issues that we’re covering on the podcast. Please get in touch: theglobalstory@bbc.com #TheGlobalStory and tell us your thoughts on what you would like us to talk about.

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The Global Story: Investigating the J-pop sexual abuse scandal

04/04/2024 GMT

Investigating the J-pop sexual abuse scandal

BBC World Service - The Global Story, Investigating the J-pop sexual abuse scandal

How a BBC documentary rocked Japan’s music industry

How a BBC documentary rocked Japan’s music industry.

For decades the Japanese entertainment industry ignored allegations that Johnny Kitagawa – a powerful music mogul who died in 2019 – had sexually abused young men and boys who he’d promised to turn into stars. Last year, the BBC aired a documentary by journalist Mobeen Azhar which shed new light on the accusations, and led to a reckoning across Japanese pop music. Azhar has been following up on the scandal and its aftermath in a new documentary. He joins Katya Adler and BBC presenter Mariko Oi, who grew up in Japan idolising J-pop stars. 

The Global Story brings you trusted insights from BBC journalists worldwide. We want your ideas, stories and experiences to help us understand and tell #TheGlobalStory. Email us at theglobalstory@bbc.com or leave a voice note or message via WhatsApp on +44 330 123 9480.

The Global Story is part of the BBC News Podcasts family. The team that makes The Global Story also makes several other podcasts, such as Americast and Ukrainecast, which cover US news and the war in Ukraine. If you enjoy The Global Story, then we think that you will enjoy some of our other podcasts too. To find them, simply search on your favourite podcast app.

This episode was made by Alice Aylett Roberts, Peter Goffin and Beth Timmins. The technical producer was Michael Regaard. The assistant editor was Sergi Forcada Freixas and the senior news editor was Jonathan Aspinwall.

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