The Debate

It’s a "worst nightmare" come true. How big is the catastrophe?Whether sabotage or carelessness is to blame for the breach in the Russian-held Nova Khakovka dam, the livelihoods of tens of thousands downstream have been washed away in a matter of hours.

Two female journalists are on trial in Iran. They face charges of spying and working for foreign intelligence. Their crime cold perhaps best be described here in the West as a good old fashioned journalistic coup. They revealed the truth about a story and dared to publish it. The story was the death in police custody of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman.

Uganda's legislation that outlaws indentifying as LGBTQ is receiving widespread condemnation. US president Joe Biden has spoken out to describe the new law as shameful. Biden, who is himself a practising Roman Catholic, a religion that says homosexuality is a sin, says Uganda's new legislation could very well harm US-Uganda relations. Before Biden's words were uttered, the law had been condemned by the United Nations as the "worst of its kind in the world."

Recep Tayyip Erdogan wins an extension of his more than two decades in power in Turkish presidential election.An election that veered to the hard right still leaves unanswered questions on the economy, the earthquake response, corruption and the plight of Syrian migrants.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says his company could "cease operating in Europe if the EU gets too tough". Altman is currently in Europe, visiting Paris after London. When he was called before Congress last week in Washington to talk about the same issue of regulating artificial intelligence, Altman made three proposals: a federal agency to control licences; safety standards for high-capability AI models; independent audits of creators.

There is the age-old question of what makes someone want to run for president. And then there is the question of how the candidate announces. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is opting for Twitter: not a tweet but a live discussion hosted by none other than the boss of that social media platform. Elon Musk insists the event does not constitute an endorsement on his part. But if the medium is the message, what does this launch say about the candidate and the times we live in?

Were often asking if Russia's invasion of Ukraine can lead to some kind of world war. But what if global conflict creeps up on us from a different quarter? Infuriated by what it portrayed as an "anti-China" G7 summit, Beijing has now made good on its threat to ban the US's biggest memory chipmaker, Micron. The move was expected, one might argue, after the West's growing restrictions on Chinese tech brands that include the likes of Huawei and TikTok. Is this a fight for market share disguised as a battle of values? Or is technology the battleground of national security in the Information Age?

How many lives have been lost so far in Bakhmut? And why? Russia claims to have fully captured the eastern Donbas city while Ukraine spins it as part of the plan, with its forces elsewhere gaining ground to the north and south.

This time, it’s an out-of-competition opening night film that's lighting the spark. Is the Cannes Film Festival in tune with the times when it rolls out the red carpet for Johnny Depp – megastar of the silver screen, and a polarising figure for those who followed his acquittal in the ugly bare-all trial that pitted the actor against ex-wife Amber Heard?

Vladimir Putin’s factually wrong when he contends that his unprovoked invasion of Ukraine was a defensive measure against US led aggression. The West is not at war against Russia.