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)

#MeToo became viral following allegations of sexual harassment and violence at the hands of Harvey Weinstein. Now women and men in their millions around the world have been mobilised by the hashtag to share their stories of abuse. But its founder Tarana Burke fears the movement has moved away from its original remit to give a voice to victims of sexual violence. She worries it is being talked about as a vindictive plot against men. So what is the reality on the ground around the globe? We hear about the impact of the #MeToo in India and Iran. What did it really achieve? Presenter: Kavita Puri Producer: Jim Frank

(South Korean demonstrators at a rally for the country's #MeToo movement in Seoul, 2018. Photo credit: Jung Yeon-Je/Getty Images)

Journalists have been subject to more killings, and increasing levels of violence and intimidation in 2018, according to monitoring groups.

This year alone more than 30 have been murdered, including Mexican veteran journalist Carlos Domínguez Rodríguez who was stabbed to death in January, 5 journalists shot dead at their office in Annapolis in the US in June, and the story that has dominated the news, the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at his consulate in Istanbul in October. The suspects range from organised criminals to state-sponsored assassins.

And it’s not just about murder – imprisonments and intimidation are also on the rise.

Why should the public care? What’s behind the surge? And how can the press and the public fight back? We talk to those journalists and activists from across the world to find out: is this the most dangerous time to be a journalist?

Contributors include:

Pavla Holcova - Czech Centre for Investigative Journalism Sothearin Yeang – former journalist, Radio Free Asia Omar Faruk Osman - Secretary General of the National Union of Somali Journalists Jan-Albert Hootsen – Mexico representative, Committee to Protect Journalists

Presenter: Victoria Uwonkunda Producer: Beth Sagar-Fenton

UPDATE: Since we recorded this programme in November three more journalists have been murdered, including a radio presenter and reporter shot dead in Syria.

(Image: Protesters hold placards during a rally against corruption and to pay tribute to murdered journalist Jan Kuciak in Bratislava, Slovakia. Photo Credit:Joe Klamar/Getty Images)

The UK voted to leave the European Union in June 2016. More than two years on, it’s still not clear how that will happen, or what will come after.

Consensus within Westminster seems impossible, and if the deal currently on offer from Brussels is voted down on December 11, the UK could crash out of the EU with no deal at all. What makes it so hard to come up with a solution?

The BBC has followed all of the twists and turns of the Brexit negotiations in minute detail. In this special programme, four correspondents from across the organisation give their take on what makes Brexit such a fraught process.

Katya Adler, Europe Editor Chris Morris, Reality Check Correspondent Alex Forsyth, Political Correspondent John Campbell, Northern Ireland Business and Economics Correspondent

Presenter: Edward Stourton Producer: Lucy Proctor

(Brexit Map - Getty Creative)

There’s talk of a new Cold War between Russia and the West. What responsibility does the West carry for the dismal state of relations?

Russian leaders say Nato has expanded far beyond the borders that were agreed when the Soviet Union collapsed and a new European order was thrashed out. They see troops and hardware stationed close to their towns and cities as highly provocative. America and the EU are seen as meddling in the internal affairs of Russia and the states surrounding it by funding pro-democracy movements and helping to topple regimes. And a new arms race is underway. Russian military leaders perceive an active threat from the West – are they right?

The previous edition was: Is Russia At War With The West?

Presenter: Kavita Puri Producer: Lucy Proctor

There are currently a number of serious allegations made in the West against Russia. They include the attempted murder of the former spy Sergei Skripal on British soil; interference in the 2016 US election; the hacking of the American electricity grid. To some, it feels like the West is under attack. But do any of these actions amount to war?

Olga Khovostunova, a Russian media analyst, describes the effect of the collapse of the Soviet Union on the psyche of President Putin and his close knit circle of security chiefs. For them, the threat from the West is real.

Norwegian foreign correspondent Oystein Borgen says Russia is engaged in a hybrid war with the West, in which Norway has become a little-known front line.

Lawyer Michael Schmitt, from the US Naval College, sets out how Russian security chiefs, almost certainly surrounded by a team of international law experts, operate in the grey zone of international law.

Political scientist Kimberley Marten explains how private military contractors operating in Ukraine, Libya, the Central African Republic and Syria give the Russian state plausible deniability in conflict zones.

Presenter: Kavita Puri Producer: Lucy Proctor

(Photo: Cyber warfare. Credit: Getty images)