The Debate

A memorial was held tonight in the French port of Calais after 27 migrants drowned trying to cross 34 kilometres of icy water to England. You'll hear grandstanding between Johnson and Macron, but the two sides have cooperated for years over this border. Both sides blame smugglers, but why has there been a recent spike in crossings? And how can they protect the rights of those people who risk their lives without opening the floodgates to uncontrolled migration?

After 16 years, the post-Merkel era is finally upon us. Social Democratic leader Olaf Scholz is taking the mantle to form Germany's first three-party coalition since the 1950s. How will it work? How compatible are the Greens to his left and the liberal FDP to his right? Berlin's loosening or tightening of the purse strings in these uncertain times is sure to dictate the tone at home and in Brussels.

Are those protesting against Covid-19 restrictions just an angry few, or do they represent a much deeper malaise?

As the Northern Hemisphere hunkers down for a new winter wave of Covid restrictions, backlash over these curbs is rearing up in Central Europe, the Netherlands and the French Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique. Some of the pushback is coming from fringe conspiracy theorists or muscle men, but many others have also lost trust in authorities and in what they see as heavy-handed measures and mixed messages. Is the unfiltered "anything goes" rhetoric that wins elections finally coming home to roost?

A climb down by the junta or has the once and future prime minister of Sudan been coopted? After long resisting pressure, Abdalla Hamdok freed from house arrest and signing with the junta an agreement to form a government of technocrats. The former international civil servant saying he did to spare further bloodshed.

Why the flare-up between Armenia and Azerbaijan? A Russian-brokered ceasefire seems to be holding so far, after the worst fighting since last year's 44-day war over the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. This time, it's also a border dispute – one that was being negotiated.

"Spiritual opium" is how the Chinese brand video games. After a tightening of the noose around the industry and rules at the start of the school year that limit screen time for teens to three hours a week, Fortnite has announced that it is folding. Three years on and one billion dollars spent, the popular survival game never got regulatory approval, despite the financial backing of Chinese tech giant Tencent. So what is the matter with Fortnite?

How to make the military go back to barracks when it's held the reins of power for so long? In Sudan, Saturday's use of live ammunition to quell protests against last month's coup shows the determination of a junta which never went away after the ouster of longtime strongman Omar al-Bashir, agreeing at best to sharing power with civilians during the transition. So what response to Saturday and its aftermath? What next for Sudan's unfinished revolution?

A fast-heating planet means humanity is going to have to transition a whole lot faster away from fossil fuels. In the homestretch of the COP26 climate summit, delegates in Glasgow are trying to make that energy transition stick as soon as possible. Governments are asking themselves: what energy mix for a climate emergency?

NATO calls it hybrid warfare. Under-sanctions Belarus is getting back at the EU by enticing migrants with tourist visas and cheap flights before encouraging them to embark on a one-way journey to the border. On Monday, the tension escalated several notches with a new scale of seemingly orchestrated movement from Minsk. How did those migrants get there? What are the conditions as they head into a third night in the cold?

In Beijing, a four-day meeting promises a "rare resolution" on Chinese history. It's all about the man at the top. Xi Jinping is being elevated to the same rank as Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, China's other transformative leaders, with an eye to next year and the lifting of de facto term limits. Will he serve a third term and beyond?