The Debate

What is a wounded bear to do? Good luck deducing Vladimir Putin’s next move he makes a return to the public eye in the wake of Saturday's aborted march on Moscow by Yevgeny Prigozhin's irregulars. What are the true intentions of the master of the Kremlin? With Belarus's president now claiming that he is hosting the Wagner Group mercenaries' boss, we ask what the real deal is and what it means for Ukraine, whose leader has made a point of staying in the public eye.

Hailed as a hero as he departed, Yevgeny Prighozin filing out of Rostov-on-Don Saturday evening with his Wagner mercenaries. Fourty-eight hours later, the question still begs: What just happened? What prompted Yevgeny Prigozhin’s march on Moscow and its abrupt halt? We chart the current whereabouts of the Wagner group leader and that of the master of the Kremlin.

Joe Biden is rolling out the red carpet and more for India's prime minister. The halls are decked for Narendra Modi's first White House state banquet. It's just one illustration of how much clout a diaspora of four-and-a-half million carries in the United States and of how strategic India has become in superpower showdowns.

$400 billion is how much the World Bank estimates could be needed to rebuild Ukraine. This Wednesday at a major conference in London, Ukraine's allies did promise significant chunks of cash – not just for the war effort but also for Ukraine's reconstruction. But with the conflict still raging and the counteroffensive to retake occupied territory just getting underway, is now the right time for a Marshall Plan for Ukraine?

There's been no sign of life since Sunday. It would be wrong to entertain false hopes for the five crew and passengers who plunged into the North Atlantic aboard a small tourist sub to explore the wreck of the Titanic. We ask about the massive search-and-rescue effort and see why it would be a miracle if those inside the Titan live to tell the tale.

Could it really spiral out of control? Increasingly militarised standoffs in the Pacific are just part of the picture as Antony Blinken becomes the highest-ranking US official to visit Beijing in five years. The trip had been pushed back at the start of the year, when a Chinese spy balloon was shot out of the sky over US territory. Are the tensions about Taiwan or trade? The answer seems to be both, if you consider that more than half of the world's semi-conductors are manufactured by Taipei and that Beijing remains the world's factory.

His legacy stretches beyond Italian borders and well beyond European borders. A state funeral has been held for Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's longest-serving post-war leader who passed away on Monday aged 86. Inside, the high and mighty packed Milan's Duomo Cathedral, while outside pressed Forza Italia loyalists and fans of AC Milan and Monza, the football clubs he owned.

Donald Trump in a court of law is nothing new. Two months after New York City charged the former US president with felony business fraud, federal prosecutors in Miami are accusing Trump of stashing and concealing classified documents that contain nuclear and military secrets at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida after he left office in 2021.

The frontline dam burst that flooded southern Ukraine is a nightmare scenario come true. Who stands to gain from the catastrophe? Also, the nightmare scenario for the planet: Canadian forest fires follow freak spring droughts. The smog is  choking North America and sending smoke to Europe, and it's only early June.

Are the United States and Saudi Arabia quietly drawing closer? It’s been nearly a year since we were in Jeddah covering that frosty fist bump between Joe Biden and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Critics had been quick to evoke memories of 9/11, the brutal war in Yemen and the murder of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, while Biden's hosts were irked by what they view as patronising lecturing on how to run a kingdom.