The Debate

What is the mission now? The chaos at the gates of Kabul airport has Western powers scrambling to save those who directly helped them these past 20 years. We ask about the challenge there. And what happens once the last military transport has airlifted out?

How has the situation for journalists changed in Tunisia in the decade since the revolution? Has the road to press freedom been entirely smooth? Our guests, including cartoonist Nidhal Ghariani, discuss how hard it would have been to draw or publish his cartoons before the revolution. We also discuss the digitalisation of the media as well as fake news and how to combat it. Join us for a special edition of The Debate in partnership with UNESCO, filmed among the ruins of Carthage, in Tunisia.

FRANCE 24 takes you to the World Heritage Site of Carthage in Tunisia for this special edition of The Debate, filmed in partnership with UNESCO. We ask if the preservation of heritage in Tunisia has improved since the 2011 revolution. We discuss the historical sites and treasures that are under threat, as well as how the past needs to be preserved for future generations.

A question of not if but when? The Taliban are continuing to gain ground ahead of the final withdrawal of US-led forces from Afghanistan, so much so that former military commanders predict the fall of Kabul within months. We ask about the latest fighting, the Afghan security forces who have fled across the border into Tajikistan and how a return of the Taliban to the place they were before 2001 would change the lives of ordinary citizens.

Who's behind the assassination of Haiti's President Jovenel Moise? We ask about the overnight attack on his private residence that's also left his wife in critical condition. In a nation that's known coups, revolutions and foreign interventions, to actually kill the sitting president comes as a shock.

What's as addictive as alcohol or tobacco, targets the young and underprivileged and makes millions for sports franchises? As we set our gaze beyond the ball at the pitch-side billboards at Euro 2021, ads for beer and home appliances seem a dying breed. Instead, online sports betting rules. It's been more than a decade since most European nations loosened rules on online gambling. What are the consequences?

A ceasefire on whose terms? The leadership in Ethiopia's rebel region of Tigray has set terms for a truce in reply to what government forces billed as a unilateral cessation of hostilities and what aid groups worry may in fact be a siege, with aid blocked and internet cut off for the restive region. Some 1.7 million displaced people now face a food crisis, with up to 400,000 people potentially facing famine.

It is a celebration of Marxist-Leninism in what could soon be the world's top capitalist power. Communism is alive and well and living in China, where the party partied this Thursday to mark its centenary birthday. Much of those 100 years were indeed a struggle and a bloody one. But for three decades now, the planet's most populous nation has gone from strength to strength.

Will he go quietly? Jacob Zuma has five days to leave his KwaZulu-Natal ranch and start serving a 15-month jail sentence for contempt of court. South Africa's 79-year-old former president had refused to appear before the corruption inquiry that's been looking into the alleged siphoning of public funds on his watch. Why does Zuma seemingly prefer jail to answering questions about what South Africans call state capture?

Will history repeat itself when the US leaves Afghanistan? The Taliban continue to advance ahead of a drawdown that could be finalised in a matter of weeks. The insurgency has even reached the gates of Kunduz, far from its traditional base in the south. As we illustrate in an excerpt from our exclusive report, the Taliban already control vast swathes of the countryside. Is their return to power inevitable? Does it signal an end to women's rights and civil liberties as was the case in pre-9/11 Afghanistan?