The Debate

It's five days on from Turkey's deadliest earthquakes since 1939 and through the grief and despair, rescuers persist. Turkey's president is acknowledging hiccups and vowing a 10,000 lira handout, the equivalent of 531 dollars, to each family affected by the quake.

Over the border in Syria, it was four days before a very first United Nations convoy could cross into rebel Idlib province through the Bab-al-Hawa checkpoint. For the first time since the earthquakes, Syria's president traveled on site.

It’s not a thank-you tour – not with Russia back on the offensive. After London and Paris, Ukraine's president was in Brussels to rally support. Making the case for more weapons, he pitched the war as one of values. We ask about the timing: his second trip abroad since Russia’s invasion nearly a year ago. Is Kyiv ready for the crucial test ahead on the battlefield? Is Europe ready?

Turkey and Syria are in their third night of searching through the rubble for quake survivors. How to deal with this disaster? Turkey and its citizens have long experience in the sudden tragedy that comes with living on two fault lines. In Monday's earthquakes, structures new and ancient tumbled alike. How best to get to those still alive under the rubble?

Two earthquakes have claimed over 2,500 lives on the border between Turkey and Syria. In the early hours of the morning, as people slept, a 7.8-magnitude quake hit. The scale of the devastation caused to the surrounding area of Gazientep is clear to see from the news footage captured at the scene. The initial impact could be felt as far away as Ankara, Beirut, Cairo and even Greenland. Over the border in northern Syria, the impact was just as devastating. The death toll there is rising too.

In Kinshasa on Wednesday, the pope called for mutual forgiveness as he met with survivors of the brutal three-decade old war in eastern DR Congo. It was just one of the highlights of a three-day visit that comes at a crucial juncture for the nation that is home to Africa's largest Catholic population, one where the Church often fills the role of the state in providing basic social services and where the clergy's mediation matters in what's an election year for DR Congo.

As any diplomat will tell you, your friends' friends aren’t necessarily your friends. We knew that at the start of the war in Ukraine, when Israel made sure to keep up relations with Russia so it could keep on targeting Moscow ally Syria. Did that all change last Saturday night in Isfahan? Israeli drones reportedly targeted a defence facility in Iran's third-largest city.

There have been six Peruvian presidents in six years and counting. The left-wing opposition is now setting the wheels in motion to remove Dina Boluarte. Her camp had already disowned her when she was vice-president. The 60-year-old Boluarte was plucked from obscurity just last month, when her predecessor was impeached on the third try and jailed for trying to rule by decree.

After much pondering and perhaps prevaricating, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has broken with a seven-decades-old non-aggression policy by greenlighting tank deliveries to Ukraine. How momentous is this moment? Did Scholz dither and cave to pressure, or did he drive a hard bargain to make sure Berlin did not go out on a limb alone?

He's been in power for 20 years, currently enjoys a winning streak of 12 elections and three referendums in a row and always knows how to stack the cards in his favour. Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan is back on the campaign trail, moving up by one month the date of presidential and legislative elections to May 14, while judges and prosecutors keep his most popular opponent busy in the courts. We ask about the calendar and the fate of Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu.

Why the tanks? Vladimir Putin wanted a lightning capture of Kyiv, but seems happy to settle for a long artillery war that potentially lasts for years. Ukraine's allies argue that only tanks can speed up a win. We ask why and look at the World War I-style trench warfare that's flattening city after city in the Donbas.