The Debate

Can a flick of a switch really be enough for Donald Trump and Elon Musk to end Ukraine's hopes of holding out against Russia? With Kyiv already reeling from daily strikes by Russia's new motor-powered drones, the US decision to slow SpaceX's Starlink service was felt immediately on Wednesday, when air raid warnings failed.

We check the status of Starlink, which is reportedly back up to speed, ask if Volodymyr Zelensky has any friends in Washington that can convince an administration that prefers diesel deals with Moscow to supporting Ukraine, and whether supporters of Kyiv in Europe have run out of road.

They're striving to wean themselves off eight decades of depending on Washington for their defence. Do they have any agency? If not, is it the end of Ukraine, NATO and even the European Union as we know it?

Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Charles Wente.

It all started as a bit of online satire by a few young people fed up by corruption. Clearly though, the "Cockroach" movement is no longer a laughing matter for India’s government, which has shut transport and blocked rallying points in the capital to quell the momentum of a youth-led mobilisation that's already brought down the education minister over rampant school exam cheating and is now spearheading the protests against the culling of names from voter rolls, with the electoral commission chief accused of bias. 

We ask about Abhijeet Dipke, the head of what calls itself the Cockroach Janta Party, the CJP – which is still not a bona fide political party – and left-wing student Neha Bora, the under-30 face of the latest round of protests.

India's traditional opposition is handling a movement it didn't start, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has so far stayed silent.

What sets India apart from Bangladesh, Nepal and elsewhere where Gen Zers have risen up against the established order? In a nation where nearly two-thirds of the population still lives in the countryside, is the mobilisation limited to middle-class city dwellers? More broadly, what future lies ahead for India's youth?

Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Ilayda Habip, Juliette Laffont, Charles Wente.

Will it be autumn recess to the rescue for a beleaguered French government? Ministers are no doubt counting the days until the school holidays start on Friday evening, in the hopes that an unexpected student movement disappears as quickly as it materialised. The movement sparked three weeks ago by deteriorating conditions in a Paris-area high school may indeed take a leave of absence, but what about demands for a generation that feels left behind by cost cutting? Only one party has sided vocally with the students since the very start: Jean-Luc Mélenchon's far-left France Unbowed.

We ask whether that will consolidate his second place in the polls ahead of next spring's presidential elections. That would qualify Mélenchon for the May 2 run-off against the far right's Marine Le Pen.

Have the mainstream centre-left and centre-right candidates gifted the youth vote to the 75-year-old far-left firebrand? Do they understand what's fuelling the aspirations and anxieties of a generation that's been through Covid, climate change and the sudden acceleration of artificial intelligence? What does the next generation want?

Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Charles Wente.

How exposed is Saudi Arabia? Just as Iran's retaliation to Donald Trump's war suddenly exposed the vulnerability of neighbouring Gulf states, how much is Riyadh reeling from the escalation with Yemen's Tehran-backed Houthis? We assess the physical and material damage from strikes on airports and oil facilities, as well as eventual repercussions for the kingdom's ability to project strength. In the age of cheap drone warfare, how much can a battle-hardened militia push against the region's richest nation?

We ask about the Houthis and the options available to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, with the United States low on ammunition and hesitant to open a new front so close to midterm elections in which voters are fuming over forever wars and prices at the pump.

On that score, the whole planet is paying the price for Trump's decision to attack Iran back in February. Will global energy supply chains ever be the same? Will the Arabian Peninsula ever be the same?

Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Charles Wente.

The story is as underreported as it is consequential for the entire planet. Three Turkish-owned cargo ships out of Ukraine have been hit in EU waters by suspected Russian drones. One, the Togo-flagged Alfa Watan, sunk on Tuesday off Bulgaria. Ten Egyptian and Syrian crew members are missing. For its part, Ukraine has been hitting Russian tankers in the Black Sea, with no sign of a return to a UN-brokered deal to allow oil, grain and fertiliser ships to pass. 

With the United States in drawdown mode – and reports that its president's entourage is coveting commercial deals with Moscow – what's Europe to do? That same Europe is still grappling over whether the closing of a few Russian consulates is strong enough of a response to the August drone attack on a Ukrainian cargo plane in Leipzig, Germany.

So how far will Russia push Europe? How equipped are Europeans both for hybrid warfare and war on the cheap, with the Ukraine war illustrating how easy it is to mass produce the drones that can pummel cities and sap morale?

Is the threat real or exaggerated, particularly in the minds of the tens of millions who will be called on in the coming months to cast ballots in Spanish, French and Italian elections?

Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Charles Wente.

For now, it's still Benjamin Netanyahu's Israel. In 2023, in the immediate aftermath of the country's worst day of bloodshed in its history, pundits predicted the quick demise of the right-wing prime minister. But on the third anniversary of the October 7 attacks, Israel's still not reckoned with the security failures on the day, the root causes of the Hamas-led terror attack, the brutal war of vengeance that followed and above all, Netanyahu is still prime minister with a fair shot at re-election. Even if the Likud leader is voted out on October 27, his most serious election rivals don't exactly advocate for a radical break when it comes to the Palestinians.

Three years on, there are trigger words, such as genocide, that make many supporters of Israel either see red or squirm.

Watch more'We were naive' about Hamas, Israeli ex-hostage Shoshan Haran says

Central to the direction Israel takes is another word: Zionism. The UK's Green Party has now gone so far as to equate it with racism. What did Zionism mean in 1948 when Israel was founded? What does it mean today? And can the concept be compatible with a lasting solution that brings peace to the Middle East?

Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Charles Wente.

It’s a protest movement that a broke, lame-duck French government did not see coming. Civil servants this Tuesday joined high schoolers who are now in their third week of picketing over long-deteriorating classroom conditions. The usual recipe for wearing down movements in France has recently been to match any violence with a heavy hand, with the escalation turning the silent majority against the protesters, as was the case with the pre-Covid Yellow Vests movement. 

There has certainly been plenty of violence. But those involved are teenagers, not adults, with many pressing legitimate gripes about growing inequality in education. Some organising on Snapchat and other socials are clearly cynical about their own future prospects and ready to have it out. With France in full pre-election posturing mode ahead of polls next spring, some see pigs where others see hoodlums, with the government borrowing the far right's language and the far left focusing on police brutality.

What President Emmanuel Macron's team doesn't have this time around is what's being called magic money; the funds that French governments usually pull out of a hat to make a crisis go away. With France's highest public debt rate in a quarter of a century spooking the eurozone and beyond, no magic money will this time appear to hire more teachers or build more classrooms. So what's the answer?

Watch moreEuro falls to 17-month low against dollar on French debt concerns

Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Lucy Davalou, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip and Charles Wente.

Do voters care about attempted coups? Brazil's Flavio Bolsonaro is on the cusp of unseating Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in the country's October 25 presidential runoff. Bolsonaro's father was jailed over the Brazilian version of the January 6 storming of the US Capitol. Up and down the ballot, other Bolsonaros have been elected in the first round as the far right surges. Is it about incumbent fatigue? Do Brazilians subscribe to Bolsonaro's "God, Homeland, Family" mantra?

And what will it take for the 80-year-old Lula to convince enough of the 21 percent of voters who stayed home last Sunday to come out for the second round? We ask how Brazil is doing on the economy, crime and the rule of law. 

Watch moreBrazil presidential election: 'Bolsonaro being ahead is a surprise,' researcher says

A democracy that was built in the wake of a military dictatorship included safeguards intended to force compromise and prevent a return to strongman rule. Is that still what Brazilians want? What does it say when the region's powerhouse seems poised to become the seventh nation in the Americas to veer to the right since the return to power last year of US President Donald Trump?

Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont, Lucy Davalou, Ilayda Habip, Charles Wente.

France still very much takes its literary prize-giving season seriously. So when a Haitian-born Canadian writer was accused of infusing his best-selling breakout novel with artificial intelligence, it got ugly in a hurry. We wade into the Thélyson Orélien affair with its subsequent accusations of racism, previous plagiarism by the author and doubts over the accuracy of AI verification tool Pangram. 

Interesting, some still love Orélien's book. Is that a problem? The scandal is all the more heartbreaking for publishers because "It Was Either That or Die" has sold 40,000 copies since its release, this as book sales have collapsed dramatically since the commercial launch of ChatGPT four short years ago.

Read morePrix Goncourt drops Canadian-Haitian writer from top French literary prize list over AI claims

All this begs an even broader question: most of humanity only started reading and writing in the past century. Is that period over already? Future generations will certainly know how to read street signs and subtitles on a video. But if we're no longer stopping what we do to engage meaningfully with the written word, how will that change us all?

Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Charles Wente.

After contagion in the Arabian Peninsula, should the entire Horn of Africa fear a domino effect? Just as US President Donald Trump’s decision to invade Iran drew the Saudis back to Yemen, did threats over the Bab al-Mandab Strait light the fuse in Ethiopia, where last week, unresolved issues between the government and its Tigray region erupted? Could a potential return to civil war draw in regional rivals?

Ethiopia didn't need pressure over the Red Sea to ignite. The breakdown of dialogue after the 2022 Pretoria agreement was always going to be a ticking time bomb for Africa's second-most populous nation.

And in four years, alliances have shifted, with neighbouring Eritrea no longer on Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's side and Addis Ababa accusing Egypt and Sudan of supporting the TPLF rebels. Sudan has its own vicious civil war, where Abiy is accused of siding with the same UAE whose arming of RSF militias is well documented.

How and who can stop a return to all-out civil war in Ethiopia? Who can prevent a regional war?

Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Charles Wente.