François Picard is pleased to welcome Tutu Alicante, an international human rights lawyer and anti-corruption activist. According to Alicante, the pope's visit to Equatorial Guinea presents a paradox: it offers a rare opportunity to spotlight injustice, yet risks being appropriated by the regime for its own validation. Could the "global moral authority" inadvertently lend credence to the authoritarian regime? Equatorial Guinea's resources have failed to lift up society and translate into human dignity. Governance remains defined by exclusion, repression and the erosion of accountability.

For Alicante, the key question is not the symbolism of the visit, but whether it serves as a catalyst for meaningful change, whether it amplifies the call for justice, transparency, and human rights, or merely reinforces the status quo. Ultimately, he argues that the responsibility lies not only with global actors like the Vatican, but also with media, civil society and citizens, to ensure that the message of reform prevails over the spectacle of power.

He highlights that "it's not often that you get a pope that can come to your country and speak in your language" and makes reference to one of Nelson Mandela's famous and beloved quotes: "When someone speaks to you in a foreign language, it speaks to your head. When they speak in your language, it speaks to your heart."

François Picard is pleased to welcome Hannah Neumann, German MEP, Greens/EFA and Chair of the EU Parliament's Delegation for Iran. She offers analysis on the growing geopolitical instability surrounding Iran, energy security, and the EU’s strategic position in an increasingly fragmented global order. According to Neumann, the central issue is not merely the volatility of negotiations, but their lack of clarity and coherence. From her vantage point, "the main problem is that they don't even have a clear focus on what they are negotiating about".

Neumann argues that current diplomatic efforts suffer from an absence of defined objectives, concerning nuclear policy, maritime security in the Strait of Hormuz, or broader regime-related questions. At the same time, she sheds light on a critical blind spot: the systematic exclusion of Iranian civil society from international discourse, exacerbated by digital repression.

Meanwhile, she places Europe’s vulnerability within its structural dependence on fossil fuels, which exposes it to geopolitical coercion. The wars in the Middle East and Ukraine "show how interconnected these different conflicts are and how absurd the situation is".

Case in point: As the EU has reached a solution with Hungary to offer a €90 billion lifeline to Ukraine, the oil flowing through the Druzhba pipeline also "supports the Russian war economy". She contends that true political autonomy for the European Union can only emerge through a decisive transition to renewable energy. In the meantime, "these war-driving authoritarian regimes can basically blackmail us with their fossil energy".

François Picard is pleased to welcome Jad Shahrour, communications manager at the Samir Kassir Foundation. Lebanon is at a geopolitical crossroads, where sovereignty, regional rivalries and international diplomacy collide. Joining us from Beirut amid the ongoing uncertainty, Shahrour places the current negotiations with Israel within a broader struggle to reassert the authority of the Lebanese state. He emphasises the necessity of disentangling Lebanon’s national decision-making from external actors, while acknowledging the deeply rooted historical tensions that complicate any path toward stability. 

François Picard welcomes Ghassan Salamé, Lebanon's culture minister. Salamé portrays Lebanon as a country that has preserved political pluralism and freedom of expression, and persevered despite decades of conflict. Within this context, he frames negotiation with Israel not as a matter of choice, but of necessity: the only viable path toward stability, dignity and the basic conditions for the Lebanese people to live and thrive.

These conditions, he argues, depend on full sovereignty over their land, people and waters, alongside respect for international law.

Reflecting on Lebanon's effort to find common ground with Israel, Salamé underscores the importance of remaining both steadfast and pragmatic.

"Look, you don't negotiate with your friend. You have nothing to negotiate with your friend. You negotiate with your enemy. And in this case, what we want is to negotiate in order to give serenity and prosperity to our fellow countrymen. That's what we are looking for. We know exactly how the military balance of power stands. We know it is not in our favour, but we also know that our population is ready to accept the principle of putting the country's interests before anything else."

François Picard is pleased to welcome Tim Bale, Professor of Politics at Queen Mary University of London. According to Professor Bale, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer appears to have unwittingly misled parliament, as a consequence of not being not being "apprised" of Peter Mandelson's failed vetting. 

While accountability remains so far elusive, Starmer's appointment of Mandelson as British ambassador to the US was widely seen as a political risk taken under pressure, our guest notes.

Indeed, although the UK already had an ambassador in Washington – the widely respected Karen Pierce – the choice of Mandelson to replace her reflected a strategic gamble shaped by anxiety over the UK's relationship with the US under Donald Trump, Professor Bale explains.

The precise location of the house that William Shakespeare bought in London has been discovered thanks to evidence unearthed by British academic Professor Lucy Munro, who’s pinpointed the exact location and layout of a property the Bard bought for £140 back in 1613, three years before he died. She tells us more in this edition of Spotlight.

"The life of Shakespeare is a fine mystery and I tremble every day lest something turn up," said Charles Dickens.

Well, tremble his ghost must because something has turned up, as we head into the anniversary week of William Shakespeare’s birth.

Some 462 years on, despite the familiar sense that not much is known about the Bard himself, we are still learning, albeit in snippets, new information about his scarcely documented life.

The precise location of the house that Shakespeare bought in London has been discovered thanks to evidence unearthed by British academic Professor Lucy Munro, who’s pinpointed the exact location and layout of a property Shakespeare bought for £140 back in 1613 – three years before he died.

It was known that he owned a house in Blackfriars, but never exactly where, with the assumption that Shakespeare was living out his final years in Stratford, which he still may have done, although he was still writing plays in 1613.

A detailed report by The Atlantic's Sarah Fitzpatrick raises many questions over the alleged excessive drinking and erratic behaviour of FBI Director Kash Patel. Patel has described the allegations as "fake news" and is threatening to take legal action against the publications. FRANCE 24's Gavin Lee speaks to Sarah Fitzpatrick in this edition of Spotlight.

A few weeks ago, FBI head Kash Patel was targeted by an apparent Iranian group of hackers that managed to get into his emails and published a series of unfortunate photographs.

Fast forward to this week: allegations of excessive drinking, unexplained absences and paranoid behaviour on the part of Patel are being made in a detailed report, published in the renowned Atlantic magazine. He has denied the claims as fake news. The journalist behind the report, Sarah Fitzpatrick, spoke to a number of FBI officials who questioned Patel's fitness for office.

Gavin Lee is pleased to welcome Robert B. Murrett, retired vice admiral in the US Navy, Professor of Practice and Deputy Director of Syracuse University's Institute for Security Policy and Law. He tells us that the Israel-Lebanon and US-Iran ceasefires are at a critical juncture in the evolving geopolitical dynamics of the Strait of Hormuz, where military risk, energy security and diplomatic recalibration intersect.

Speaking as both a former naval commander and policy expert, Vice Admiral Murrett regards the current moment within a broader operational and strategic continuum: one in which emergent cooperation, even among adversaries, signals the potential for de-escalation.

According to the vice admiral, what we are witnessing is not resolution, but rather a meaningful shift in posture. The signals emerging from Tehran, Washington and regional actors suggest that all sides are beginning to recognise the shared cost of continued disruption. The reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, coupled with multilateral coordination efforts, reflects a convergence of interests that transcends immediate political tensions.

While challenges remain, particularly in operational execution and trust-building, the current trajectory points towards what he would describe as a cautiously constructive phase, where diplomacy and security mechanisms may begin to align.

According to Vice Admiral Murrett, the signals from the US, Iran and Pakistan are "promising" in terms of "cutting some kind of a larger deal". He reminds us, in no uncertain terms, that "opening up the Strait of Hormuz is in everybody's interest, including the Iranians, but certainly all the nations that depend upon the trade coming through the SOH and certainly the regional partners, the Gulf states and other allies."

"In all these kinds of standoffs that we have for negotiations," explains the vice admiral, "you're always looking for one side to have more leverage than the other." Murrett argues that "the best kind of deals that are made diplomatically are just behind the other kind of situation where both sides are equally unhappy."

Right now, he sees "leverage on both sides, but it's certainly in the interest of both Iran and the United States, and all the other partners we have in the region, specifically the Gulf states, to have some kind of a arrangement that would extend the two-week truce for a much longer period."

Gavin Lee is pleased to welcome former Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi. Italy's former premier offers an in-depth, insightful and thought-provoking reading of contemporary geopolitics, European cohesion and leadership ethics. Speaking from the vantage point of a former leader of a major European country, he reflects on instability in global alliances, energy vulnerability in Europe and the evolving nature of political leadership. His analysis is marked by a tension between pragmatism and principle, where shifting allegiances are both criticised and, at times, cautiously endorsed.

Renzi looks at today's world with a sense of urgency and realism, noting that we are living in a time where alliances are fragile, leadership is often inconsistent, and global order is under immense pressure. From the Strait of Hormuz to the internal dynamics of Europe, what matters now, he says, is clarity of strategy and credibility in leadership. He warns that Europe must stop reacting and start acting, especially on energy and foreign policy. At the same time, leadership cannot simply adapt without direction.

Changing one's mind is not a weakness if it leads to better decisions, but without coherence, it morphs into volatility and long-term instability. Renzi believes politics still requires responsibility. When citizens say "no", leaders must listen. Credibility is not built on power alone, but on the courage to accept consequences.

Renzi served as Italy's prime minister from 2014 to 2016, becoming the youngest leader in the country's modern history at just 39 years old.

In a nation known for short-lived governments, his two and a half years in office actually exceeded the postwar average.

He ultimately resigned after staking his leadership on a constitutional referendum aimed at reducing the size and altering the composition of the Senate, Italy's upper house of parliament. When the proposal was rejected, he stepped down.

As FRANCE 24's Gavin Lee observes, it brings to mind the famous line from L. P. Hartley: "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there."

François Picard is pleased to welcome Irfan Nooruddin, the Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani Professor of Indian Politics in the Asian Studies Program at Georgetown University. As a scholar of Indian politics, he approaches institutional reform not as a question of isolated policy change, but as a reconfiguration of incentives within a vast and uneven federal democracy. He examines the interlinked dynamics shaping India's political future, including the normative promise and practical limits of women's representation.

While reforms carry genuine transformative potential, they are embedded within party structures that mediate their impact. Similarly, debates over representation are not merely technical adjustments but reflect deeper tensions between demographic change, federal equity and political power. What is at stake is not only who gets represented, but how representation itself is defined in a country of continental scale.

Nooruddin argues there is 'much to be gained by having more women in India's highest parliamentary body."

'"Extensive scholarly research demonstrates," explains Nooruddin, "where women are empowered, women's issues tend to be taken more seriously, violence against women tends to go down and also tends to get reported and taken more seriously by the police."