The Debate

It took one month of haggling for the European Union to agree on a Russian oil embargo that offers an exemption for holdout Hungary. How big or how small a caveat? After all, the EU is reducing dependency on Russian oil by 90 percent. In the long run, it's a further incentive to accelerate the continent's move away from fossil fuels.

The EU is weighing up more sanctions against Russia. In Brussels, a special summit has been examining a sixth round of sanctions against Moscow since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began on February 24. Is this the moment an oil embargo comes into play?

Is a peace generation coming of age in Colombia? Six years after the FARC rebellion laid down its arms and one year after student-led protests against inequality and police brutality, citizens will vote on Sunday in the first round of a presidential election where the 2016 peace deal that ended the Americas' longest civil war is but one factor. For the very first time in the country's history, the left could come to power.

Twenty-seven school shootings have taken place since the start of the year in the United States. Ten days after Buffalo, the news cycle turns to Texas with the familiar ritual of shock, grief and outrage before counter-arguments about mental health and the responsibility of parents.

How the world has changed in 90 days. Remember the eve of the Russian invasion? Even after a massive troop buildup, and even as Vladimir Putin was questioning Ukraine's very right to exist as a sovereign state, it still beggared belief that war was imminent.

Who is winning the room? Who is winning the region? Joe Biden has inflation and an uphill battle to the midterms back home, but that is no bother for Indo-Pacific allies. Monday saw the launch of a regional trade partnership and plans for a partnership to stare down maritime threats. Tuesday will see a Tokyo summit of the Quad, which despite its denials, looks more and more like the far east's answer to NATO. The alliance brings together the leaders of the US, Japan, India and Australia.

After becoming the first French president in two decades to win re-election, Emmanuel Macron now has to convince enough voters to once again give him a mandate in next month's legislative elections. A centrist who this time has to face an unusually united left, Macron has to persuade the electorate to stick with free-market reform, while shedding his "too clever for his own good" image.

He is not a lone wolf. The 18-year-old who travelled to Buffalo, New York to livestream a shooting spree targeting Black shoppers had the complicity of an "anything goes" internet where hate can spread at the speed of light, and a "land of the free" mantra where he could buy assault weapons over the counter.

It never happened during the entire Cold War. But all these years later, Russia's border with NATO is about to double in size. Finland remains unmoved by threats out of the Kremlin over its bid to join the US-led alliance. The same goes for neighbouring Sweden, which is so concerned by Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine that it is ready to call time on two centuries of neutrality.

Enter the twilight of the world's longest reign. The 96-year-old Queen Elizabeth II missed what is arguably the highlight of any British monarch's calendar: the reading of the government's parliamentary program instead delivered by her son, the crown prince. The importance is mostly symbolic, since the Queen's Speech is written by the prime minister. However the optics of the exercise beget the question: what United Kingdom will Charles inherit?