The Debate

A container ship seized in the Gulf, a ceasefire deadline that's running out fast and plenty of bargaining table brinkmanship between the US and Iran. With the price of oil back on the rise, de-escalation would certainly offer relief to Donald Trump's constituents. So what's the plan of a US president who’s proved impulsive – at times threatening civilizational erasure, at others floating the idea of splitting the profits with Iran on a Strait of Hormuz toll for tankers? How to bargain when your opponent enjoys home field advantage and knows you don't want to put boots on the ground?

Contrary to the mantra that went viral last year, Trump does not always chicken out. He certainly proved it on February 28, when he started the war and took out Iran's supreme leader.

Not only that, but he doesn’t always seem to have a plan. We ask about erratic messaging, fresh reports of impulse decision-making inside the White House and an apparent disregard for winning hearts and minds.

Case in point: allowing Israel to continue a Gaza-style bulldozing of towns in southern Lebanon that flies in the face of Trump's objective of pursuing normalisation on Israel's northern border and a broader deal with Hezbollah patron Iran.

Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Margot Loizillon.

The new US-born pope is on his first-ever visit to Cameroon's restive English-speaking northwest, and he's not turning the other cheek. "Blessed are the peacemakers! But woe to those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic and political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth," Pope Leo XIV declared on Thursday in Bamenda.

Read morePope Leo blasts 'handful of tyrants' ravaging world during Cameroon visit

The message was the same when he landed on Wednesday in Yaoundé and while it may sound like a rebuttal to a critical US president who's an ocean away, it's also first a pointed message to the leader in the room hosting Leo: 93-year-old Paul Biya, only the second head of state Cameroon has known since independence from France in 1960.  

We ask our panel what makes the Bamenda leg of the pope's four-nation tour of Africa historic, about the separatist rebels who called a four-day truce during the visit, and how the Church can help in a nation where half the population is under 18 and whose politics can feel like a ticking time bomb, with zero visibility surrounding Biya's succession.

We also ask how, less than a year after succeeding Francis, this pope is faring under fire from Donald Trump and Catholic conservatives, and whether his message resonates among the faithful in an age of wars, growing inequality and artificial intelligence.

In the face of stiff competition from evangelical churches, the direction of the world's largest organised religion in the 21st century is at stake.

Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Charles Wente.

Iran is proving that missiles don't need to travel thousands of kilometres. Across the Gulf is all it takes to force the world's mightiest army to the bargaining table. Pressure on the choke point for one-fifth of the planet's oil and gas is exposing the vulnerability of Arabian Peninsula monarchies.

They'd spent decades building reputations as reliable havens of stability fuelled by an endless supply of petrodollars. We track the price of crude, the latest movement of tankers through the Strait, prospects for talks, and ask how Gulf states could rethink their alliances with Washington, particularly investments that can sometimes seem like protection money to pay for the US defence shield from Tehran and its proxies like the Houthis, who in the past already hit oil installations.

Read moreUS blockade of the Strait of Hormuz: What do the numbers show?

With Russia and now China accused of actively aiding Iran target its neighbours, where do those Gulf states turn for their defence? Are they all of the same mind when it comes to Iran?

And more broadly, can they restore the veneer of the dream destinations displayed by social media influencers who fled when the fighting started?

Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Delphine Liou.

Israeli and Lebanese envoys are appearing together on camera in the same room – that may well be a first. It's happening under the auspices of the US secretary of state in Washington. If you're rooting for peace, there's good news and bad news. The good news is that the Lebanese government's never been so vocal in calling on Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah to disarm and the US president has a real stake in reining in Israel if he wants his attempts to strike a deal with Tehran to bear fruit. 

Read moreUS hails 'historic opportunity' for peace after Lebanon, Israel talks in Washington

The bad news is that the fighting continues, with Israel accused of the Gaza-style levelling of villages in southern Lebanon, and Hezbollah refusing both surrender and disarmament.

Will Israel set up for good, pushing boundaries like it did recently in neighbouring Syria? A week ago, Benjamin Netanyahu was depicted as omnipotent with outlets like The New York Times reporting on how it was he who convinced Donald Trump to attack Iran.

If that was true, is it still the case? Or was last Wednesday's daytime bombing of Beirut that killed more than 300 people too much, even for Israel's closest allies?

Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Delphine Liou.

Eurosceptics may come and go, but there's only one Viktor Orban. It took 16 years and Sunday's record turnout in Hungary to vote out the seemingly unbeatable far-right leader who once boasted of building an illiberal state. Why did the far-right idol of MAGA world finally fall out of favour? And not just by a nose: "The Hungarian people didn't vote for a simple change of government, but for a complete change of regime," boasts Prime Minister-in-waiting Peter Magyar. How will the once-ally-turned-pro-EU conservative turn his constitutional supermajority into a rolling back of Orban's consolidation of power?

We ask about the task at hand and reactions abroad – starting with Russia, on which Hungary depends for its oil and gas. How to handle the Kremlin?

The sighs of relief in Brussels and Kyiv are audible, what with Budapest no longer championing a coalition of Eurosceptics that includes France's Marine Le Pen.

But it doesn't mean Hungary will always be pliant, nor that hostility from bigger powers will magically disappear.

Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Charles Wente.

A most confusing Wednesday it was. In the space of six minutes, during a single press conference, the White House spokesperson first hailed the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, then called on Iran to reopen the world’s most oil-sensitive shipping lane. Five weeks of contradictory statements have bred wider uncertainty over the true contents of the ceasefire deal – and even who is party to it. Confusion moves markets, and in a war that has triggered the most severe energy crisis in decades, oil prices reflect that volatility: having fallen sharply on Wednesday, they have since climbed back above $100 a barrel.

And amid such turbulence, there are always those who sense an opportunity to profit.

We’ll examine who stands to gain, and how – whether this is simply smart investing, or something more troubling. With so much power concentrated in the hands of a single man, we’ll also ask whether greater scrutiny is warranted within the cabinet of Donald Trump, amid accusations that the line between national interest and personal profit may be blurring.

If it is oil producers such as Saudi Arabia and Russia, that is one thing. But what if it is the United States itself?

 

Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Charles Wente.

No apocalypse. Instead, an eleventh-hour ceasefire between Iran and the United States – one that is still being tested – with both sides claiming victory after five and a half weeks of war that may reshape how the world views them.

Meanwhile, there is no ceasefire in Beirut, where Israel has carried out its heaviest strikes yet on the capital, hitting multiple densely populated areas. Dozens are feared dead. Will Washington tell Israel to halt its operation against Hezbollah?

Then there is the Gulf. Even if the guns fall silent, it could take weeks – months, perhaps longer – to restore oil output to previous levels.

And finally, there is the ratcheting up of biblical rhetoric.

Faced with a regime where, for now, soldiers – not clerics – appear to hold sway, Donald Trump and his White House have issued the kind of doomsday threats more often associated with radical theocracies or rogue nuclear states. Will the world remember the threat to erase “an entire civilisation”, even if it never comes to pass?

 

Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Charles Wente.

Is Europe’s future on the ballot in Hungary? In Budapest, the US vice president is actively stumping for far-right incumbent Viktor Orban who trails in the polls ahead of Sunday’s general election. European politicians sometimes campaign for likeminded peers from neighbouring nations, but in this case, it is the United States openly taking aim at the bloc using the same talking points as Vladimir Putin’s Russia. 

We talk about whether JD Vance’s support helps or hurts Orban in the homestretch of a race where the 62-year-old populist has made a point of holding up the European Union’s €90 billion loan to Ukraine.

We also take a look at Orban's strategy and the opposition's claim that the prime minister attempted a false flag operation in neighbouring Serbia. 

More broadly, we assess how the nation of 9.5 million has fared under Orban’s 16-year rule. How has pushing Hungary as the avant garde of a white Christian anti-woke, anti-immigrant alliance served Hungary? And what is the opposition offering instead?

Produced by François Picard, Théophile Vareille, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Charles Wente

Might is right… until it isn’t. 2026 began with US commandos seizing Venezuela’s president in a zero-casualty operation that put the rest of the world on notice. But now, Donald Trump’s first prime-time address in nearly five weeks of war is worrying markets rather than reassuring them. The US president is telling affected nations to buy more oil from him – and, if they are so concerned about energy security in the Strait of Hormuz, to go in themselves and sort it out.

How should Gulf, European and Asian allies react to this “I break it, you fix it” approach to warfare? Is it already too late to walk away? And even if Washington washes its hands of the war it started with Israel, how can a fresh ten-year cycle of instability in the Middle East be avoided?

For the United States, is this merely a passing blemish? Will the midterm elections rescue those hoping for a return to the previous world order? History suggests that, despite setbacks – from the failed 1980 hostage rescue in Iran to the insurgencies that bogged the US down in Iraq and Afghanistan – the United States has ultimately emerged undiminished as the world’s leading superpower.

But now Trump has picked a fight with an enemy that is both a state and seemingly capable of deploying insurgent tactics. Is this a turning point – the moment after which the United States of America no longer appears quite so mighty?

 

Produced by François Picard, Aline Bottin, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Charles Wente.

Are we witnessing globalisation’s biggest turning point since the end of the Cold War? With Asia feeling the impact of US President Donald Trump’s war against Iran, and steadfast American allies such as the Philippines forced to declare an energy emergency, the immediate consequences are rippling through nations that manufacture much of what we buy in the West – with a boomerang effect for the rest of the world.

Will they ever view the United States in the same light again? Especially under a president who favours spheres of influence and one-on-one hard bargains over international rules and global free trade. As so-called middle powers seek alliances that reduce dependence both on the US for defence and on China for goods, we’ll hear from the French president, currently on a tour of Japan and Korea.

At the heart of it all is what quite literally fuels capitalism: energy. We’ll examine the potential short-term return of coal, and look ahead to the longer-term outlook. Will the events of the past month discourage efforts to accelerate – or even maintain – the transition to renewables? And how can countries hedge against a world that, for now, seems dangerously dependent on warring oil and gas suppliers?

 

Produced by François Picard, Aline Bottin, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Charles Wente.