The Focus

Last month Milorad Dodik sparked international controversy when a vote was cast to pull the autonomous statelet of Republic Srpska out of the Bosnian federation. In this episode of The Focus, John is joined by Bosnian politician and policy analyst Reuf Bajrovic where they discuss the ramifications of this move. Was this in answer to legitimate Bosnian Serb political grievances? How will this affect the area formerly known as Yugoslavia, the site of some of the worst fighting in Europe since World War II. And what will this mean for European strategic stability?

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In this our first episode for 2022, John speaks with American science correspondent and author Brendan Borrell on the race to produce the COVID vaccines. 
Brendan has recently released his book on this topic, The First Shots: The Epic Rivalries & Heroic Science behind the race to the Corona Virus Vaccines. Did the West win the race for the vaccines? Did competition between big pharma companies drive development? How effective were the Chinese and Russian approaches? Was the Trump administration as clueless as it appeared? And was media reporting well managed during the pandemic? 
Join us for this comprehensive breakdown of how we got where we did regarding vaccine development looking at the heroic and not so heroic aspects of this critical development.

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In this our final episode of the year we are joined by returning guest, New York Times Best-Seller &  Harvard University Professor, Avi Loeb. Avi is not a conventional thinker. He believes that scientific discovery, including the search for extraterrestrial life, can be accelerated by maintaining an open mind and pursuing a child-like curiosity where nothing is taken off the table, until it is. Avi heads up Project Galileo a systematic, scientific search for extraterrestrial artefacts. Join John as he and Avi discuss what disclosure of extraterrestrial life would mean to life on Earth.

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Prof. Alfred W. McCoy from the University of Wisconsin-Madison has recently published a book entitled “To Govern the Globe: World Orders and Catastrophic Change”. It is a highly readable, sweeping historical narrative. But within it pages lurks a stark warning that it is out of disasters that new world orders are born and that we are on the cusp of such a change. Join John as he speaks with Prof. McCoy on international order, disorder and rebirth and what might lie ahead for us all in this fascinating episode of The Focus.  

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Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko's use of migrants against the countries of Poland and Lithuania is but one example whereby aggressor-states are now deliberately blurring the lines between war and peace. Plausible deniability of these sorts of non-military ‘attack’ can leave the recipient country in a legal and ethical quandary. Do they counter? Do they simply absorb the attack and do nothing? Welcome to the peculiar world of 21st Century conflict. In this episode John speaks with the University of Canberra’s  Prof. Sascha-Dominik Doc Bachmann on this new, innovative form of conflict and where it may lead.

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Few would think that the tiny country of Lithuania has an activist foreign policy agenda, wedged as it is between Poland to its west and Russia to its east. But this country of just over 2 million people has played its part in pushing back the grey zone threat posed by ‘weaponised migrants’ from Belarus, in coordination with fellow EU/NATO state Poland. It has also taken a particularly strong stance against the worst totalitarian excesses of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) by overtly backing the Uyghur people of East Turkestan, Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters and supporting an autonomous, democratic Taiwan. In this episode of The Focus, John speaks with Lithuanian MP Dovilė Šakalienė were they discuss this tiny country’s counter migration strategy against Belarus and its bold position against the PRC. What makes this Baltic state so strong in its convictions?

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Russia is in the headlines again. With another military mobilisation of some 92,000 Russian troops on the border with neighbouring Ukraine in this episode John speaks with Moscow correspondent for The New Yorker, Joshua Yaffa. John & Joshua discuss Russia’s contemporary strategic positioning and Putin’s power politics within the Russian state. Join us for this extremely insightful interview.

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As we come out of COP26 Glasgow with a slight taste of disappointment in our mouths, what practical steps are being taken at the everyday level that will help make emission reduction a reality? In this episode John speaks with the University of Calgary’s Blake Shaffer to discuss the practicalities of the Electric Vehicle (EV) Revolution.

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In this episode, John speaks with Dr. Ana Dolidze, leader of the For the People Party who recently challenged incumbent Tbilisi’s Mayor, Kakha Kaladze. How important was this mayoral election to the city of Tbilisi, capital of the Republic of Georgia? Did this election signal a shift in Georgian politics generally? This interview was conducted while Ana was being driven to her office in Tbilisi.  She was holding the phone in her hand and the noise you hear in the background is the that of her jewellery on her arm.

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Was our universe created by intelligent beings? Are we all part of some grand experiment? Harvard Professor and New York Times Bestselling author Avi Loeb speaks with John about his latest controversial supposition which he published in October’s Scientific American. Hold on to your hats folks, this is a pretty wild ride!

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