The year 2030 was set by the UN as the world's deadline for halting the spread of HIV, stopping Aids deaths, and having the first generation since 1980 born and raised completely free from infection.

But at last month’s 22nd International Aids conference the mood was less optimistic. Deaths from the disease, having stabilised, are now beginning to increase, with some people fearing the disease is now poised to add massively to its global death toll.

As global funding for Aids decreases, and drug resistant strains of HIV rise, this week’s Inquiry asks, could we see another Aids pandemic?

(image: HIV and Aids activists in Amsterdam, Netherlands take part in the protest march Towards Zero Together. Credit: Shutterstock)

It was May 2013 when Cody Wilson went public with his 3D-printed handgun. An online video showed the crude plastic object fixed on top of a tripod. The trigger was pulled from a distance by someone pulling a long piece of string.

Since that first successful firing, 3D printed guns and the debate around them has come a long way. The design for Cody Wilson’s plastic firearm, dubbed the ‘Liberator’ has been downloaded from the internet nearly 100,000 times. The US government has tried to block its publication. But is the cat already out of the bag? Does the 3D printing revolution mean that people anywhere can print anything they want, as long as they get their hands on the right design? Can we control 3D printing?

(image: A three dimensional (3D) printer creating a product / Shutterstock)

In India, false rumours about child kidnappers, spread on WhatsApp, have prompted fearful mobs to kill innocent people. In May 2018 a video went viral. The original, a Pakistani child safety video, had been edited to show two men on a motorbike driving up to a group of children playing cricket in the street. They swoop up a small boy in a red t-shirt and drive away.

As the video spread across India people started receiving messages in their WhatsApp groups, some claiming to be from the local police, saying a gang of 250 to 300 people from outside their region had entered the area. It appealed to parents not to lose sight of their children.

Rumours like this have led to the deaths of at least 18 innocent people across India over the last few months. But what is it about this simple messaging platform - one that a fifth of the planet use every single day - that breeds intimacy, fuels emotions, and spreads fear? This week on The Inquiry we ask: Is WhatsApp fuelling vigilantism and why?

Image: A sign that says 'WhatsApp Neigbourhood Prevention'. Photo Copyright: Antal Guszlev

It’s a July morning in Ethiopia and Addisalem Hadigu, a journalist in his 50s, boards a flight to neighbouring Eritrea.

But it’s no ordinary plane. This ‘bird of peace’ is the first commercial flight to operate between the two countries since 1998, and Addisalem is flying to see his wife and two daughters – the family he hasn’t seen in 20 years.

Reunions like this are happening across Ethiopia and Eritrea, after the two countries finally agreed a peace deal and ended Africa’s longest war. But will it last? In this week’s Inquiry, we examine the ties that hold Eritrea and Ethiopia together, and the forces which could push them apart.

As relations with Iran and the West reach a new low point with the collapse earlier this year of the nuclear deal and the reintroduction of strict economic sanctions we ask: what does Iran think of the West? Pooneh Ghoddoosi explores a long and tortuous history of outside interference in the country. It dates back to the Western desire for Iran's rich oil reserves in the early 20th century, and continues through the CIA-backed coup in 1953, which strengthened the Shah's grip on the throne. The Western powers supported Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War, while the US is believed to have unleashed a highly effective cyber-weapon against the Iranian nuclear programme. Iran has reasons to be equally suspicious of Moscow - with the Russian Empire seizing large parts of historical Persia in the 19th century.

Producer: Matthew Chapman

Image: An Iranian cleric and a woman walk past an anti-US mural outside the former US embassy in Tehran, Iran (Credit: European Photopress Agency)

By the time she died at the age of 46, Koko the gorilla was a global superstar. Not only could she apparently understand two thousand words of spoken English and convey her own thoughts and feelings using sign language, but she was even able to give her own pet kitten a name. Some say that it’s impossible to know whether Koko really understood what she was communicating, or whether she was just trying to please people by signing certain things. Either way, her death raises questions about animals, and the ways in which we try to understand them. On this week’s Inquiry we examine how recent discoveries are bringing us closer to understanding our fellow creatures. We reveal some surprising animal capabilities, and ask whether we can ever know what it’s like to be anything other than human.

image: European Hamster (Shutterstock)

Food production accounts for as much global greenhouse gas emissions as all forms of transport combined. That’s why many scientists think we can’t tackle climate change without addressing what we eat. So – in this week’s repeat Inquiry – we’re looking at alternative climate-friendly diets and asking what it would take to move the world towards them. Presenter: Helena Merriman (Photo: Friends having a vegetarian meal. Credit: Shutterstock)

The world’s two biggest economies are on the brink of a costly standoff. The US has announced tariffs of 25% on a swathe of Chinese goods, starting July 6th. China has vowed to respond in kind. ‘If someone wants a trade war,’ China’s Commerce Minister said, ‘we will fight to the end.’ President Trump is bullish, threatening further tariffs and tweeting: ‘trade wars are good, and easy to win.’ But the WTO has warned that a trade war would have a ‘severe’ impact on the global economy. We look at the forces driving the conflict and how each side might back down. With Helen Grady.

(Image: Cargo containers with USA and Chinese flags on their sides crashing together. Credit: Shutterstock)

Donte Robinson and Rashon Nelson were waiting to meet a business associate in Starbucks. After two minutes, the store manager called the police and the African-American men were removed from the café in handcuffs.

The Starbucks CEO has described the incident as “racial profiling”, claiming that the manager acted on unconscious racial bias. In response, he closed 8,000 branches of the coffee giant so his staff could attend anti-bias training.

It’s not just Starbucks - diversity training, such as this, has become a multi-million dollar global business. On this week’s Inquiry, we examine why these biases are so ingrained and what we can do to eradicate them.

(Photo: Two little boys on the grass. Credit: Shutterstock)

More than half the world’s countries are not producing enough babies to offset the number of deaths. Russia is the latest to experience a dip in the fertility rate, despite the government rolling out measures to encourage people to have more children. They have tried mortgage subsidies, giving couples days off to have sex, and rewarding fruitful mothers with the grand prize of a refrigerator. But the fertility rate continues to drop.

It is a situation that governments in Spain, Singapore, Germany, South Korea and Japan all face. Many are calling this a demographic crisis, so this week we are asking how do you make people have babies?

Presenter: Helena Merriman Producer: Xavier Zapata

(Photo: Smiling baby, Credit: Shutterstock)

Last year, the world watched as Islamic State was driven from Raqqa, the city they claimed as their capital. The UN has estimated that around 80% of the city’s buildings were destroyed or damaged in the battle. Eight months later, many Raqqans are returning home. Amid the rubble, life is slowly returning to Raqqa. This week, we investigate what life is like after Islamic State.

(Picture: A view of destroyed buildings at the frontline in Raqqa, Syria October 16, 2017. Credit: Reuters / Erik De Castro)

Chicago resident Robert McDaniel was surprised when a police commander showed up at his home to warn him that they were watching him. With only a misdemeanour conviction and arrests for a number of suspected minor offenses, he had somehow made it onto the Chicago Police Department’s so called ‘heat list’ - a list of names created by algorithm of those deemed to be most at risk of either being a victim or perpetrator of violent crime.

In this Inquiry we look at whether computers can predict future of when, where and by whom crimes will be committed. Can analysing ‘big data’ help target scarce resources in more intelligent ways? Or are the algorithms exacerbating the already heightened tensions between police and the public? How effective are some of the ‘predictive policing’ systems already in use? The inner workings of many of these programmes are protected by private copyright laws too so how can you challenge the decision made by a secret algorithm?

(Photo:Chicago Police officers standing next to a police car and a taped off crime scene. Credit: Joshua Lott/AFP/Getty Images)